The Mech Touch

Ves looked at the lab equipment with considerable dread and hesitation.

"I can do this. It will be quick and easy. I'll just have to stick my body inside the machine and wait until I can go out again, just with a couple of parts missing. It is just like cannibalizing a portion of a mech in order to build a better machine."

It all made sense in his mind and thoughts. In order to build the cyborg cat that could potentially grant him power beyond anything else he had ever wielded, he had to work with the materials he had available.

After selecting an appropriate alloy for the mechanical side of his upcoming divine artifact, he proceeded to spend 10 days on designing his cyborg cat.

Ves wished he could have spent more time on refining his design, but he had to make do with a relatively small but intricate design.

Surprisingly enough, designing the organic half of his cyborg cat wasn't as challenging as he thought.

Sure, he initially felt clueless about how to design a cat made out of his own reconstituted flesh.

Despite taking the form factor of a cat, Ves wanted the organic bits of his divine artifact to maintain as much of the properties of his half-alien, half-human flesh as possible.

It was quite hard for him to reconcile his conflicting demands with his limited understanding of Biotechnology until he found the right approach.

"Rather than treating it as a designer beast project, I should treat it as a downscaled mech design project!"

It was like making one of the mech figurines that he did for fun or because he wanted to surprise one of his children with a new toy.

He just needed to be a lot more serious and thorough about it. Ves took mech design projects a lot more seriously, so he immediately underwent a mentality shift when he resumed his work.

No matter whether it was a mech or a biomech, all pilotable machines followed a common set of rules and conventions.

Ves had designed so many mechs that those rules and conventions were literally engraved in his Spirituality.

This was why he experienced much less difficulties when he designed his first biomech. As long as the product was related to a mech, Ves would always find a way to leverage his abilities to complete his work.

"I'm a mech designer. Designing mechs is what I do. If I can't design a mech, it's not because I am unable to, but because I'm not pushing my capabilities hard enough."

Although Ves might not be capable of distorting reality and producing all kinds of amazing phenomena like swordmasters and high-ranking mech designers, he was still a Journeyman Mech Designer!

Designing mechs was more than just a job to him. It was his conviction and his purpose. So long as he set his sights on designing any mech, he would always work at least twice as hard and maybe even more if an exciting idea stoked his passion!

Ves certainly had plenty of that in spades once he designed his cyborg cat as if it was a mech.

Of course, the much smaller form factor and radically different demands forced Ves to make a lot of changes.

Much of it was for the better. A miniature 'tiger mech' did not require as many advanced systems or high-performance parts. The cyborg cat did not need to bear so much weight or control tens of millions of individual components.

Since Ves already had experience with designing fairly accurate and representative mech figurines, he already knew most of the steps necessary to simplify his miniature mech design.

While he was largely able to rely on old and proven methods to design the mechanical exterior of his cyborg cat, he had to become a lot more creative to tackle the organic internal architecture.

There were many times when he felt tempted to give up and design a completely mechanical cat, but when he thought about all of the amazing possibilities he could bring to life with blood and flesh, he committed to his chosen direction.

"Designing the internals of a cat is just like designing an organic tiger mech. It doesn't really matter where the biomatter comes from as long as it bends to my will."

Ves was designing a miniature tiger mech using his own flesh as the main ingredient. As long as he framed his project in this way, he stopped feeling lost and always knew what he had to do in order to progress his work.

Sure, he had to take out a virtual textbook and quickly get up to speed in order to solve many new problems that he had never encountered before, but the amount of times he needed to reference another source was much more limited due to the tiny scale of his miniature mech design project.

The only parts he stumbled with were the more unusual aspects of his cyborg cat. He already figured out that merging his work with a fragment of his Divine Core would transform and elevate it into a completely transcendent work, but that did not mean he wanted the base form to be too plain and simple.

"The properties of the base form will determine the direction of its evolution."

Ves depended heavily on the more esoteric knowledge granted by both the Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Design enlightenment fruit as well as the Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar enlightenment fruit for this phase in the design project.

He wanted his cyborg cat to gain similar properties as his Blood Knight, but also gain the capability to do more.

"My cyborg cat should not only be an accurate reflection of my domain, but also a vessel which can propagate my vision."

As Ves increasingly immersed himself in the more unorthodox and mystical theories of the Blood Cult and the higher caste members of the orven race, he began to mix up his thoughts and form strange and unusual conclusions.

Under normal circumstances, he would have questioned or rejected all of these odd ideas, but now that he had entered the mental state of a mech designer, he picked a few proposals that appealed to him the most and found a way to stuff them inside his tiny cyborg cat design!

Ves didn't really understand what he had done or why he made all of those design choices by the time he woke up from his intensive state.

Some of the functions he tried to add to his cyborg cat design sounded way too ambitious to him. How could he possibly implement such advanced features into his divine artifact when he had no idea whether they even worked?!

"Well, this isn't the first time that I've tried out an experimental new design application in a final product." He shrugged.

His rational side told him that it was exceedingly reckless to implement new and untested technology into a critical work that would have great implications for his future.

His passionate side told him to trust in his gut and his instincts and believe in his own design solutions, even the ones that looked a little dubious.

Being a mech designer wasn't always about cold, hard numbers and boring rules. There was an art to designing mechs that could reach beyond the limits that confined the possibilities of ordinary products.

"Besides, once my cyborg cat becomes a divine artifact, everything will be smoothed over somehow."

Ves had learned from his latest enlightenment fruit that the ancient orvens initially made sloppy and frankly shabby altars.

Somehow, most of them worked out and performed their functions without too many problems. The orvens discovered that intent was more important than getting everything right.

Of course, if the altar was good to begin with, it took a lot less sacrifices for it to assume a proper form.

"I don't want my divine artifact to feed on sacrifices, though." Ves furrowed his brows.

This was a major sticking point to him. As a mech designer, he liked to think he engaged in a productive profession. He was a creator, not a destroyer.

Sure, his works could be used to spread untold amounts of destruction, but that was the prerogative of his customers. Ves had nothing to do with that unless he commanded the mechs himself.

In any case, Ves did not want his cyborg cat to follow the depraved footsteps of the orvens.

"I kind of understand why the orven civilization is so degenerate. Their leaders delude themselves into thinking that they can become gods as long as they feed from the lives of their fellow orven brothers. They are cannibals in all but name. In order for them to gain strength, they need to take it away from others."

That was a road that he would never want to take. Ves wanted to achieve the opposite with his cyborg cat. He wanted it to become a more benign existence that could grant power to others. He wanted his cyborg cat to be defined by its ability to facilitate the growth of both mechs and mech pilots.

These were the actions that best aligned with his design philosophy and his principles and he was determined not to stray from them in the pursuit of greater power!

"It's fine if my cyborg cat isn't powerful on its own. It can do so much more if it can function as a universal amplifier or force multiplier."

Trying to implement this aspiration on a cyborg cat that incorporated two different tech bases was anything but simple, but somehow he managed to complete his design with few obvious inadequacies!

After checking the design multiple times, Ves became confident that it was viable and able to do what he needed it to do, all without subjecting his design to any simulation testing or prototype testing.

He just knew that the design was sound.

"It's kind of weird that I feel so confident about my work. Is this what designing a divine artifact for myself is like? I feel as if I am being guided by an unknown influence."

Ves doubted himself for a moment. He carefully inspected his mental, spiritual and physical state and did not find any worrying indications that he was being mind controlled.

"Weird."

He set this suspicious matter aside since he couldn't do anything about it. Rather than obsess over the variables that he couldn't control, he would rather work with the ones that he could affect through his own actions.

At this point, that meant going through with the fabrication of his divine artifact.

An invisible cloud seemed to press on him as he came closer to this crucial step.

"Divine artifacts are important. Super important. I have a strong feeling that my life will change forever once I go through with this. Once I am done, I can no longer go back. My course will be set."

Ves did not waste much time on second-guessing the decisions he had made for his divine artifact. He was already completely onboard with the design concept. The doubts he had over the less transparent aspects of his cyborg cat were not enough to pull him back to the drawing board.

This was why he had pulled his body out of his Unending Regalia and brought himself before one of the lab machines.

He had already programmed the biomedical device to perform a series of actions that would allow him to obtain the organic raw materials he needed to proceed with the fabrication run.

"I just need to go in and out. Nothing more."

Thinking about everything that he could gain from his current project finally broke his hesitation.

He took a deep breath before he put his body inside the tomb-like biomedical chamber.

"Proceed." He issued a verbal command.

He could feel the biomedical device go to work. It injected him with a cocktail of chemicals meant to sedate him and limit any unfortunate side effects for the operation that was about to take place.

Just as his thoughts became a little woozy, he felt a sharp and powerful blade slice right through his leg below the knee!

"AAAAAH!" He roared as the pain overwhelmed his sedation. "THAT HURTS, GODDAMMIT!"

He forgot about accounting for his abnormal physique's increased resistance against sedatives!

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