5392 Third Wheel

Gloriana along with her children knelt before a small altar that depicted the six different facets of the Superior Mother.

"Please bless my hand and grant me inspiration to create another masterwork..."

As the woman continued to pray, her children looked a bit bemused at the situation.

Marvaine scratched his head. "Mama, why do we have to pray to grandmother? She is family, right?"

"Mama is just doing this to make herself feel better." Aurelia whispered to her younger brother.

The mother in question grew annoyed and firmly patted her children on the head. "The Superior Mother is more than family. She is a Supreme, an all-powerful deity who has transcended death and all other boundaries! You should respect her divinity rather than make light of it! She is the ultimate woman and the ideal we must always strive for. We should revere her not because she is powerful, but because she embodies the ultimate form of femininity that every Hexer aspires to master."

Both Aurelia and Andraste looked impressed. Their opinions of their grandmother grew considerably as Gloriana extolled the greatness of the Superior Mother.

However, the only boy among them felt a bit out of place.

"What about me, mama?"

"Oh, sweetie." Gloriana smiled and leaned over to embrace her youngest child in a hug. "Your journey to womanhood will be longer than most. You can just listen for now. What you will learn from me shall be useful to you sooner or later."

"Okay."

As Gloriana and the kids continued to engage in Hexer cultural traditions, Ves and Alexa stood further away as they went over the timetable of the fabrication run.

Alexa Streon had joined the Larkinson Clan just after the Miracle Couple fabricated the Greenaxe and the Bloodripper. This meant that this would be the first fabrication session where she would play an integral part in the creation of a proper living expert mech!

Given her lack of experience, Ves had to make sure that his assistant became aware of how the Larkinsons approached their most important jobs. The unique and quirky methods that he developed over the course of his career deviated significantly from the norm.

"One of our most remarkable abilities is to form a design network that can unite the thoughts of every participating mech designer together." Ves explained as Blinky dove out of his head and began to project a few glowing threads. "We employ it in times when we design a mech, but it can make an even greater difference when we fabricate a machine. Words cannot describe how beneficial and magical it is to form a collective of minds that all approach the same work from multiple perspectives."

Alexa had already heard about the design network before. "Will I be able to participate in it as well?"

Her mentor hesitated for a moment before he shook his head. "No. It is not good for your development if you become exposed to too many strong influences when you are still in the early exploration stage of your career. As an Apprentice Mech Designer, you should be allowed to find your own way, instead of letting us cram our own design philosophies down your throat. In the past, every mech designer that participated in our fabrication runs was at least a Journeyman Mech Designer. There is little harm in sharing our perspectives and design approaches with them because they already formed their own way of working with mechs. Yours is still malleable. It would be a great shame if you lose your spark of originality for no good reason."

The young Terran mech designer frowned. She had become aware that the design network was an amazing tool that granted the Larkinson mech designers a lot of advantages. It felt like a missed opportunity for her to remain closed to this seemingly magical network.

"Did you not take me on as your direct disciple? I think it would not do much harm if I became exposed to your deeper insights and thoughts towards your work."

Ves sighed. "Maybe it is the way that Master Carmin Olson barely spent any time on me, but I do not want to turn you into my clone. I value ingenuity, and I know first-hand that this is a skill that can only be developed through practice and struggle. Excessive guidance might help you form your design philosophy faster, but it will mostly end up as an extension of my own rather than a spark generated by your own imagination. While you can still branch out and develop your vision into a more unique direction, the starting point still matters a lot. This decision is better for your overall development."

As a well-educated Terran mech designer, Alexa knew that he was right. She just found it a bit frustrating to come so close to attaining one of her goals, but needed to make the final steps the hard way.

"Will I be able to observe you when you are working?" Alexa requested next as Maia appeared from her own head. "Even if I am busy with my own assignments, my companion spirit can still watch and learn on my behalf."

"Myah." The spiritual ragdoll cat floated over to Blinky and rubbed her cheek against the Star Cat.

"Mrow~" Blinky gave the younger companion spirit a few playful licks.

He considered her proposal for a moment. "Fine. Try and control yourself, though. A lot will happen during the fabrication run. With all of the E energy flying around, your young companion spirit may easily get overwhelmed."

Alexa grinned. Even though she had been a part of much more impressive mech-related jobs, working with the Larkinsons was a much more unique experience than anything else she came across in her relatively short career.

"Oh, I also need to mention two other peculiar details. First off, Blinky here will release a large amount of E energy into the workshop. He might not look like it, but he has accumulated an immense amount of it. Once he starts to bathe this entire chamber with our energies, you will feel as if my presence is everywhere. It won't be as intimate as connecting to our design network, but you will definitely enter a state of mind that is more conducive to understanding living mechs. This is also one of the reasons why it is not necessary for you to participate too actively in our fabrication run."

The young woman looked intrigued. She took a closer look at Blinky's. His purple fur openly projected his growing internal universe.

"You are full of surprises. Your tone suggests that the cost of doing this is not small. Are you willing to tell me why you are willing to release so much E energy? Are you trying to engulf the workshop with a glow?"

"Oh, it is not as expensive as you think. Don't forget that my companion spirit can devour a lot of ambient E energy in the immediate environment. I actually have a glow already, but it isn't strong in my opinion. I need Blinky's help to saturate this workshop with life energy because it will subtly bestow additional properties to all of the workshop equipment. This will make it easier to infuse life into every part I make. All of this will imbue the Jupiter Project with stronger extraordinary traits. The differences will become even more noticeable once we work on the Blood Star Mark II."

It was not easy to explain this all. Alexa would just have to witness it all happening with her own eyes.

Before he was ready to start, he just remembered that he would be employing one more method to enhance the craftsmanship of his work.

"Ah, I almost forgot to mention that I will be borrowing the help of one of my 'design spirits' for this fabrication run. Vulcan has recently matured to the point where I can borrow his insights and skill in craftsmanship more extensively than before. I will be trying this out for the first time, so do not be surprised if I appear a bit different than usual."

"Okay... I shall take that into account, sir."

Ten minutes later, the Larkinsons involved in the fabrication run all gathered together.

General Ark Larkinson looked more excited than anyone else. This was his mech that was about to be made. He was more than willing to stick around for the entire duration of the fabrication run in order to witness the birth of his future mechanical vessel every step of the way!

Grandpa Benjamin had taken the children under his wing. He and the nannies would take over the responsibility of caring for and watching over the brats while their parents were occupied for the next 6 days.

"Are you ready?"

"Let us begin!"

"Mrow!"

Blinky took action first! He began to devour a lot of E energy in the immediate environment, producing an invisible vortex that most people could only observe through their companion spirits.

Soon enough, he began to expel a large amount of spiritual energy that intrinsically belonged to Ves.

The Star Cat could not convert enough of E energy radiation to output so much life energy, so he was forced to tap into the immense reserve that was locked in his growing Blinkyverse.

Ves meanwhile removed the Hammer of Brilliance from his toolbelt and lifted it over his head in a dramatic fashion. It was as if he was attempting to call down lightning from the heavens!

"VULCAN, LEND ME YOUR CRAFTSMANSHIP!"

The roar of volcano seemed to echo throughout the life-saturated workshop as a distinctly different metal presence descended onto Ves!

The only Senior in the workshop seemed to swell in ways that the people around him could not explain.

He still carried himself as Ves, but had also gained a powerful add-on that made it seem as if there were two strong personalities occupying the same body!

Somehow, Ves and Vulcan did not conflict with each other at all. They perfectly merged with each other and formed a harmonious balance where neither of them detracted from the other.

This was a perfect union of a mech designer and a more traditional craftsman!

Once Ves got the hang of this strange form of possession, he turned towards his wife and signaled that she could proceed.

"Alexandria!"

"Maow!"

The Queen Cat did not want to let Blinky steal the show, and began to expand her own presence as she extended a powerful and intimate bond with Ves and Ark!

Ves and Gloriana already made use of a design network many times.

This time was different because Vulcan added an entire net dimension to a design network that was normally composed of two active participants.

Vulcan may be modeled after a humanoid, but he was a pure design spirit who operated in a completely different way than corporeal life forms.

"Maaaaooow!"

"Tell Vulcan that he needs to rein himself in!" Gloriana gritted her teeth. "His thoughts are too overwhelming!"

"He is already working on it. He is not accustomed to restraining himself in this way."

Vulcan was a design spirit that was keeping track of thousands of different happenings at the same time. A lot of craftsmen and dwarves looked up to him every day that the design spirit would have gotten overwhelmed a long time ago if he did not possess the ability to split his mind into many parallel tracks.

It was completely excessive to expose the design network to all of those irrelevant thought processes. Vulcan just needed to isolate them all so that they would not get in the way of their current work.

Both Gloriana and her companion spirit looked relieved. "That is better. Let us start our work and see how this goes. I hope that involving Vulcan in our fabrication run is worth all of the additional complications."

"You don't have to worry about that, honey. He might not be a mech designer, but his insights on materials and traditional craftsmanship are impressive. He brings a whole new perspective to our production processes that will definitely add more value to our work."