The Mech Touch

Those who possessed a more comprehensive grasp of cultivation science were absolutely floored by what Ves had managed to accomplish!

What Ves presented to them all should have been almost impossible. Even if Ves was able to get it done in one way or another, they expected companion spirits to emerge only after expending extremely rare resources or undergoing an incredibly dangerous life-threatening procedure.

Yet as Ves was done with hyping up all of the real and potential benefits that companion spirits brought to their principals, he began to shock his listeners once again by explaining the logistics of providing them to people.

"I have worked on companion spirits for numerous years." Ves confidently spoke to an audience that looked a lot more attentive and engaged in this closed session than before. "1 have come up with two different ways to impart them to people. The original method is when I operate on an individual in person. This has several advantages and disadvantages. It is easier to add extra strengths and attributes that the recipient does not have before. It also allows me to design and program the appearance, the potential abilities and the growth trajectory of the spirit in advance. Many of my closest subordinates and allies have received this personal service from me and gained considerable boosts that slowly grow over time."

That caused a lot of people to look at Ves with a hungry expression. They probably wanted to contract him to impart him with a custom companion spirit as soon as this session was over!

To be honest, Ves did not want to remain stuck here and create companion spirits one after another for the rest of the duration of this conference.

Exchanging benefits was important, but attending other informative sessions was also important!

This was why he needed to reduce the heat and lower the demand for his personal services. It would be very hard for him to reject so many powerful and influential mechers otherwise.

He raised his palm. "My method has limitations. First off, I cannot impart them on anyone who is too strong for me to operate on their most important inner selves. I am completely unable to do anything to ace pilots because their strong instinctual defenses are too sensitive. I imagine that I am unable to do anything to Master Mech Designers either for comparable reasons. I can only employ this method on a moderately powerful individual. As for children and adults who have yet to display any cultivation talent, I cannot give them a mature companion spirit immediately, but I can plant a seed that they can slowly grow and mature over years. This is what I have done for my children."

There were many implications in his worlds. Ves wondered how many people in the audience understood the hidden meaning of what he had just conveyed.

"This method is also fairly risky and dangerous. It is just as important and critical as installing a cranial implant in your head. I am sure you are familiar with the risks of augmenting your brain. You need to be able to trust that the implant has not been tampered with. You also need to trust the implant surgeons to perform the procedure correctly and without damaging the parts of the brain that you rely upon to excel in your work. The same considerations apply with companion spirits. I do not believe that I have botched this process when I have serviced my previous clients, but I am not a qualified medical professional who possesses any relevant certification and degrees."

That caused a lot of people to look a little less eager now that Ves deliberately portrayed himself as a back-alley doctor!

Ves smiled again. "My original method is incredibly useful to people, but the aforementioned limitations have led me to conclude that it is not suitable for mass adoption. 1 am the only person who can perform this procedure. It is locked to my design philosophy and unique circumstances. My companion spirit also provides a lot of assistance in operating on people\'s souls. Since it is difficult to replicate my circumstances, I have worked to develop an alternate means of imparting companion spirits that is much more reliable, consistent and replicable."

He gestured towards the surrounding trees. "One of my research institutions has dedicated years of development into this research project. My researchers and specialists have made relatively little progress after a point because we were lacking a critical source that could activate our desired solution. It is only after the Age of Dawn has started that our trees have gained the final factor they needed to make them work. If any of you are perceptive enough, then you should have picked up on the fact that they are constantly absorbing E energy radiation."

The trees might look a little creepy due to their fleshy construction, but Ves found it to be quite good at absorbing E energy radiation. He attributed this to using Titania\'s former flesh as the main ingredient.

"The companion spirit fruit trees that we have developed and nurtured over the years require ordinary nutrients such as water, compost and gasses, just like any other normal standard tree. However, in order to impart these fruits with the energies needed to create companion spirits, the trees must be subjected to background radiation. The stronger the radiation, the faster these fruits can grow."

One of the Masters in the back couldn\'t help but ask a question at this time.

"What is the average yield of these trees, Professor Larkinson?"

"I was just getting to that." Ves responded. "None of our trees are very old at the moment. Typical young trees like this can grow a companion spirit fruit to maturity in around 3 months at the current level of background radiation. You can easily shorten this if you find a way to increase the concentration of E energy radiation, although there will likely be diminishing returns. The trees will grow 9 to 21 fruits per cycle. You can either leave the fruits in place to enrich their energy content and produce stronger companion spirits as a result, or you can pluck them right away and use them to augment anyone who meets the requirements."

"What are the requirements of these fruits?"

Ves smirked as he turned and carefully pluck a pear-shaped fruit with a refreshing green coloring.

The companion spirit fruits tended to be shaped like pears, but they came in all sorts of colors, from wheat gold to eggplant purple.

It didn\'t really matter how they looked. One shape or color was not better than any of the alternatives. Ves just wanted to add a little more variety to the fruits in order to make them more exciting.

"Each mature fruit can impart a companion spirit fruit merely by ingesting them." Ves stated. "Don\'t worry too much about the dietary impact of these fruits. It is like eating any other standard fruit. As long as your physique is able to digest an apple or a pear, you can eat this fruit. At worst, you can just vomit it out. It should not impact the process. What truly matters is that the act of biting, chewing and swallowing the fruit activates a trigger that causes the special E energy construct locked within the fruit to enter your body and move up to your soul. This process is completely safe. By leaving out an actor such as myself, it stands a much better chance of going through your inner defenses without triggering a rejection reaction."

The ingenuity behind this process was rather clever. There was a good reason why Ves stuck to the concept of fruit even though he could have resorted to different alternatives.

From a spiritual perspective, fruits were harmless and benign foods that people always associated with positive benefits. Many trees evolved in a way that encouraged other organisms to eat their fruits, so there was no malice or danger involved in any part of this chain.

By borrowing from this old interaction and making sure that his new products did not deviate too much from the conceptual meaning of fruit, Ves managed to turn these succulent and delectable snacks into viable augmentations that could induce major changes to a person\'s spirit!

"Any companion spirit fruit that does not trigger a rejection reaction is legitimate." Ves emphasized to his audience. "The ones that do produce complications are either botched, immature or somehow programmed to take advantage of you. Everyone\'s soul is sensitive towards any influences that can cause potential harm or malice. You can rely on this capability to prevent widespread abuse of these new kinds of fruits."

Not everyone found these claims to be credible. It was in the nature of the Association to verify every invention and claim to make absolutely certain that there weren\'t any hidden dangers.

Part of the reason why the mechers took so long in observing and monitoring Jovy\'s companion spirit was because of their incessant need to verify that everything was in order.

Their prudence was justified. The mechers possessed a strong engineering tradition, which meant that they went through a lot of effort to prevent any possible mistakes from occurring.

A single misstep could easily kill millions of people!

Right now, the mechers still knew too little about the safety of his companion spirit fruit trees. If not for the fact that red humanity was moving closer to extinction with each passing day, they probably would have preferred that Ves spend a few more decades on refining this powerful application.

Since that was not a realistic option anymore, Ves had to make sure to spell out any possible dangers and other limitations.

"All companion spirit fruits can be ingested by any human or red human." He stated. "Now, I understand that the definition of human can be a little fuzzy these days. Aside from the biological compatibility that I have mentioned before, I have programmed the E energy construct so that it conducts a test that verifies that the recipient is human or considers himself a human. Anyone who is obviously alien will not be able to activate the core part of the fruit. It will just float away and dissipate into nothing."

His original companion spirit fruits did not possess this racial lock. The T Institute had to feed a lot of them to alien captives in order to gather enough test and observation data.

Ves just added this restriction to the first production version of the companion spirit tree as this pattern was meant to be utilized for use outside of lab conditions.

"Aside from this restriction, a companion spirit fruit can only work on individuals who already possess the talent or potential for cultivation. Not all of you may know what that means, but there is no need to worry too much about it. In the Age of Mechs, few people possessed this particular quality. Now that we have entered the Age of Dawn, gradual exposure to background radiation is causing every human to develop this quality. It is just a matter of time."

These words reassured the people who already knew that they lacked this essential property. Exotic radiation was truly a boon to all of them as this new variable granted these people a new chance to attain extraordinary strength and longevity!

Ves casually tossed and caught the green companion spirit fruit in his hand.

"I think you will be able to understand these fruits a lot better if you can witness their effect in person. Who among you wishes to be the first volunteer to partake in this fruit? As long as you are not strong enough to resist the process, it should grant you a brand-new companion spirit within a couple of minutes. Who wants to try?"

Over a hundred hands immediately shot up in the air!