The Mech Touch

He defined spirituality as the metaphysical phenomena associated with mental strength, a certain kind of spiritual energy and imagination.

He learned or heavily suspected that spirituality was the defining factor in determining whether mech pilots advanced to expert pilots and Apprentice Mech Designers to Journeyman Mech Designers.

His mishap in an asteroid field in a quiet star system in the Bright Republic showed him that spirituality could be used to turn intangible and untouchable.

He witnessed the Church of Haatumak, a hidden hand of the Five Scrolls Compact, wield spirituality in novel ways, including being able to detect it by the use of a very weird clone.

His understanding of spirituality advanced quite significantly during the Aeon Corona Mission. His exposure to the might of Qilanxo and witnessing the effects of a bond between a Sacred God and a pair of mech pilots opened his eyes to the preciousness of spirituality.

Spirituality already existed in the galaxy even before Ves first dabbled in this field! What was more, many different people and organizations developed their own understanding of this phenomenon!

Each developed their own applications for spirituality.

Mech pilots for example seemed to develop a force of will that allowed them to exert mental pressure externally. This strong force of will also allowed them to resonate with compatible resonating materials incorporated into their expert mechs to achieve powerful results.

In contrast, mech designers applied their spirituality internally. Through forming their design philosophies and realizing them step by step, they were able to provide a strong direction for their design style and at the same time implement very abstruse concepts into their work that empowered them beyond what normal people could accomplish.

Lucky and his ghostly mother both acquired the ability to turn intangible. In fact, Ves experienced a pseudo effect of this from the creepy worshippers of Haatumak, who became undetectable to everyone without spiritual senses!

Other applications of spirituality doubtlessly existed. Ves regarded spirituality as a type of energy that was difficult to observe, grasp and master. In fact, one of the major reasons why spirituality hadn't become a well-developed scientific field in the galaxy was because no one had found a way to measure or observe it directly! The most they could do was to gather some clues from the applications of this elusive phenomenon!

Everyone excelled in certain applications of spirituality, and Ves possessed a unique one as far as he was concerned. For some reason, he was very perceptive to its existence.

This changed everything as far as he was concerned. Being able to sense spirituality meant he could interact with it directly while having a clear direction of its use. The techniques he developed were all related to his imagination and the imaginary realm. He used his perception and his developing Spirituality Attribute to his own advantage in empowering his mech designs and mechs with a spiritual quality!

Frankly speaking, Ves considered his derivative ability to create images and breathe life into them by imbuing them with his Spirituality to be his specialty in this field. Mech pilots may be able to resonate with their own equipment while Lucky possessed the ability to turn intangible at will, but Ves did not feel jealous because his own specialty suited him the most!

"However, that is not the extent of my abilities."

Influencing the X-Factor of a mech was only one of several possible applications. Now that he developed a Spiritual Resonance technique, he somehow gained the ability to connect his spirit to someone else's spirit regardless of distance!

Ves could already see the many possible uses for such an unheard-of ability that resembled long-ranged telepathy.

His new application of spirituality was not as amazing as it sounded, however. It was hard to hone in on the right spiritual imprint that someone left in the vast and directionless imaginary realm.

Only expert pilots or entities of similar spiritual strength occupied enough weight in the imaginary realm for Ves to find. Even then, he needed to know them well enough to be drawn to their existence. His mental compass grew more reliable the more he knew about his target.

In this case, Ves learned enough about Venerable Fontain to be able to stumble upon his presence in the imaginary realm after fifteen minutes, though his sense of time in the imaginary realm might not be very reliable anymore.

When Ves cast his spirit in the imaginary realm, he never thought about his own presence. The imprints of spiritually strong entities residing in the imaginary realm didn't seem to be very aware.

Perhaps Ves might have some scruples if some native spiritual entities resided in this metaphysical plane, but he never encountered anything of the sort. They wouldn't be able to exist for long without a source of spirituality holding their existences together.

How did he know that?

It was because his image of Venerable Foster was starting to degrade when he put it out of his mind and shoved it within the imaginary realm!

There was some sort of corrosive aspect to the windy fog that kept eating away at the insubstantial image. Other hazards might exist as well that prevented idle thoughts from polluting the imaginary realm with nonsensical thoughts.

"This place is very eerie now that I think about it." Ves thought to himself while trying to hide and obscure his own presence in the imaginary realm.

He constantly pumped his spirituality into the image of Venerable Foster, empowering it so that it radiated a vibe that resembled her force of will.

This image formed the key to his harebrained scheme of trying to obtain a spiritual fragment from Venerable Fontain of the Spiral Shockers.

Ves knew that his next act might substantially harm Venerable Fontain and impact his ability to pilot his expert mech. Yet he figured that with the war about to end, the loyal Brighter expert pilot wouldn't need to be in tiptop shape anyway.

Ves did not think any further about the potential consequences of messing with someone's spirituality in order to stop second-guessing himself.

He couldn't afford to let his guilty conscience get in the way of progressing his ability to design mechs!

He needed to go through with his plan so that his upcoming fatty mech design would feature the strongest iteration of the X-Factor yet! The potential gains attracted him like a moth to a flame, and at this point he was so hungry for improvement that he would do anything to advance his specialty!

No wonder Senior Mech Designers could be so maniacal about their own research sometimes!

"Even if I'm eager, I should make sure to be careful as well."

Ves drew his own spiritual presence further away from Venerable Fontain's spiritual presence. He then began to puppet the image of Venerable Foster and controlled it like a mech pilot controlled a mech.

Foster approached the boundary of Venerable Fontain's spiritual presence. To Ves, it appeared like a giant egg-shaped wall. It was a rock-solid barrier that protected the core of Fontain's spirituality against the corrosive fog of the imaginary realm.

When Foster's image brushed up against it, a painful feedback transmitted back to Ves. He immediately got an impression of Fontain's will!

Where Venerable Foster's force of will contained an aggressive and domineering edge, Venerable Fontain's will instead carried an unyielding and indomitable quality.

The contrast was striking. Fontain was less aggressive and that reflected in his force of will. Above all else, Ves learned more about the expert pilot in that single touch than spending six hours reading through his record!

Venerable Fontain didn't appear to be a space knight specialist that clung to any notions of knighthood and chivalry. Ves got the sense that he used to be a normal mech pilot who somehow lucked out in the spirituality department and succeeded in advancing to expert pilot.

In any case, Fontain's force of will mattered a lot because his spiritual presence within the imaginary realm was like an all-encompassing space fortress!

The image of Venerable Foster rotated around Fontain's fortress but found not a single opening or gate for it to break through.

"Damnit. This guy is so obsessed with being unbreakable that he doesn't have any weak points in his spiritual presence!" Ves mentally cursed.

Ves did not let this hindrance stop him. If he couldn't worm his way through the cracks, he would just have to make an opening himself.

"There's no other way to crack into this shell except to apply brute force."

He contemplated on how he should go about it. He entertained trying to conjure up a railgun or even a fully-featured mech into existence, but all of those options sounded far too convoluted and time consuming.

The corrosive fog constantly wore down his Spirituality while he delayed! In fact, right now the fog wore him down twice as fast because it affected his invisible presence as well as the image of Venerable Foster at the same time!

The more complicated the image, the longer it took for Ves to form it into existence. He couldn't wait that long and run out of steam just as he was ready to breach Venerable Fontain's shell.

He split his concentration yet again and formed a simple lance and reinforced it as best he could. In fact, Ves derived the design and material composition of his latest image to the main weapon of the Parallax Star. He only changed its external appearance a bit in order to avoid having the weapon traced back to himself.

When he figured he pumped enough of his Spirituality into the lance, he moved it over to the image of Venerable Foster. Ves felt an increased strain in his mind as he multitasked his excursion into the imaginary realm. The more images he tried to maintain, the greater the strain on his mind.

Fortunately, his high Intelligence Attribute allowed him to keep track of several things at once. Ves made use of of his enhanced cognitive functions to run several activities at once.

Even so, he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long, especially since his mind already carried the ongoing burden of hosting Qilanxo's spiritual fragment.

"I need to hurry up."

The armed image of Venerable Foster brandished its new lance before backing up a fair distance. After honing in on her target, it uttered a scream and charged forth!

The impact happened in an instant! Ves felt a sharp spike of pain in his mind as the violent contact directly put his Spirituality at odds with Venerable Fontain's force of will!

The lance gained the advantage! While the best part about Fontain's mental fortress was that it exposed no weaknesses, it wasn't particularly resilient against a concentrated attack either! Venerable Fontain was forced to spread his force of will over the entire surface area of his mental fortification, thereby diluting the potency of his spiritual strength!

"If Venerable Fontain was awake and on guard, it would have been a lot harder to pierce through this shell."

Right now, the hole the lance managed to form in the shell exposed a bright and psychedelic gaseus substance inside! Some of it had already started to leak through the hole but most remained within the shell.

Ves mentally lit up at the sight! This couldn't be anything else except Venerable Fontain spiritual energy!

The image of Venerable Foster laughed deviously as it extended its hands and scooped up handfuls of hot and glowing gas. After some thought, Ves commanded the image to press the balls of gas against each other, compacting it into a more solid form.

This put another strain on his mind but Ves increased the pressure because he did not think he would be able to work with a bunch of spiritual gas. The spiritual fragment needed to be more solid and self-contained in order to prevent it from dissipating!

As Ves applied more pressure through the image of Venerable Foster, he had the notion that he was metaphorically butting heads with Venerable Fontain. Some of the expert pilot's confused thoughts began to filter into his mind.

Ves began to realize that Venerable Fontain was starting to regain his consciousness!

"I have to hurry up! I don't think I'll be able to steal from him once he's fully awake!"

The undignified image of Venerable Foster kept poking it hand into the hole in the fortification and drew back a ball of gas. The image then pressed the ball into the growing chunk of compressed spirituality that increasingly resembled a self-contained spiritual fragment!

Just when Ves thought he stole enough spiritual energy to work with, Venerable Fontain's fortification began to shudder!

WHO DARES! A VESIAN?!

Spikes suddenly emerged out of its smooth surface, one of them impaling the image of Venerable Foster directly!

The attack transmitted a huge spike of pain into Ves' mind, throwing him directly out of the imaginary realm!

Just as he was removed from this realm, he made sure to drag along his loot from this excursion as well!