Just kitting out Lucky with the Misfortune Harness did not an he turned into an expert saboteur.
There was a huge difference between sneaking into guarded facilities in order to surreptitiously munch on exotics in storage and to perform effective sabotage!
What to do first upon entry. How to identify critical components. How to rank them in priority. How to search for key personnel. How to kill them without compromising the other goals of the mission. How to return to the stealth shuttle without getting detected and shot to. Lucky needed to undergo systematic training in order to turn into a capable Black Cat!
Calabast took hold of Lucky, who still wore the black-coated full-body harness, and smiled in an adoring fashion.
"I'll turn you into a true terror after a few days. With all of your capabilities, you'll be able to single-handedly topple entire fortresses! Your abilities are wasted in the hands of Ves."
"ow!"
As the woman took the gem cat turned commando cat away, Ves completely put Lucky out of his mind and began to cast his mind back to his ch designs.
With two major projects demanding most of his attention, he really didn't have that much ti to spend on managing the task force.
Fortunately, the four minor projects demanded much less personal attention. Aside from spending so ti on drafting a design and selecting so key components, the assistant ch designers only had to follow his instructions and work out the details by themselves.
While Ves did not have to be personally involved in every decision and implentation, he had to make sure to keep track of the projects and make sure they followed his vision. If the assistants designed without direction, it was impossible to form a spiritual foundation.
Even then, the spiritual foundations of the minor projects were substantially weaker than he was used to. In order to make up for the deficit, Ves had to act wasteful and purposefully transfer a substantial amount of spiritual energy into the incomplete ch designs.
This was a rather forceful and unnatural process of fostering life in a ch design. He felt rather unsure whether the spiritual quality of any of the minor ch designs would et his standards.
"Well, completing four additional ch designs is better than completing nothing at all. They don't have to be my best work. They just have to et the LMC's standards."
He already resigned himself to the possibility that all of his minor ch projects wouldn't be as spiritually potent as his major ch projects.
It was like trying to raise several children in a Kinner training camp rather than pouring attention on a single kid in a loving household. The forr did the job of training massive amounts of competent adults, but the latter had a considerably higher chance of leading a fulfilling life!
Even so, Ves was very experienced in spiritual manipulation, especially when it ca to tying it together with ch design. He had gained an increasing grasp of the rules and chanisms that affected the formation of spiritual foundations. This ant he could 'ga the system' in order to achieve the maximum result with relatively little ti investnt.
This was important, because the quality, quantity and purity of a ch design's spiritual foundation determined the functioning of spiritual constructs.
A strong, high-quality foundation not only allowed him to form more triggered abilities, but also increase their strength and potency.
A ch design that endured a lot of neglect produced a shaky, spotty foundation that didn't leave Ves with much to work with. Even if he did form a spiritual construct, the triggered ability probably wouldn't et his expectations.
"I don't have to worry about that at this mont. Their foundations have barely ford."
In the first couple of months, the technical developnt of the minor projects took primacy. Making the right design choices, structuring the design process and providing guidance to the assistants. The more exotic and exciting implentations ca in the later stages when the designs beca more solid.
The Chiron, despite its rather low specs, was a very complicated machine. The ability to adapt its shape and change the proportions of its limbs had to be designed from the ground up, which entailed performing a lot of calculations as well as trial and error.
Since Ves decided to reserve the training ch for the Larkinson Clan, he opted to make use of stronger and more premium materials. While this provided the ch cadets with much greater protection against accidents, they were quite expensive and difficult to integrate.
Though Ves found it rather tedious to keep track of all of these changes, Gloriana thought differently.
To her, it was an interesting puzzle!
With Gloriana watching over this minor project with greater attention, the Chiron would definitely beco a worthy training ch for the Larkinson Clan.
The Ferocious Piranha was a lot more straightforward. As a spaceborn skirmisher ant to bring the Doom Guard's terror aura to the enemy, the ch just needed to abide by the classic characteristics of its ch type.
It had to excel in mobility, of course. Ves paired the ch design with a very powerful lightweight flight system. As a trade off for its powerful accelerated and quick response tis, the wings of the Ferocious Piranha drained energy at a rapid weight, which was quite a serious problem to a machine that couldn't carry a lot of energy cells!
Ves envisioned the Ferocious Piranha to be utilized in rapid strikes, flanking attacks and very quick raids. It had to be able to cross distances in space as rapidly as possible in order to bring its terror glow within the range of an enemy formation.
The damage it inflicted was secondary to the glow it exerted onto the enemy.
That said, Ves did not wish to devolve any of his chs into glow delivery machines. Therefore, he tried to figure out a way to make his vision for the Ferocious Piranha more distinctive.
"The glow alone isn't capable of breaking enemy ch pilots unless the Ferocious Piranha gets very close. The Doom Guard is at least able to back up its threat with a wide-area flathrower. A light skirmisher only has so piddly knives."
He failed to co up with good ideas for now, so he decided to mull over the decision later. Perhaps his experiences in the Nyxian Gap might provide him with so inspiration.
When Ves turned to the Sanctuary, he deliberately aid to keep it simple. As an offensive space knight, its primary function was to maintain a zone that dampened glows as much as possible, whether benign or malignant.
Unlike the Ferocious Piranha, the Sanctuary didn't require too many gimmicks or additional flair. As a ch designed to offer sanctuary against volatile spiritual auras, Ves believed he needed to design the ch as sothing that conveyed silence, purity and tranquility.
"Kind of.. like a religious ch."
His face grew ugly as the vision he ford of the Sanctuary began to resemble the Transcendent ssenger, Holy Soldier and Deliverer chs.
"This is not going to be an Ylvainan ch!"
Turning it into an Ylvainan ch ant that most of his custors wouldn't be able to make use of it. Custors would have to go through great lengths to hire devout Ylvainan ch pilots in order to make use of its glow dampening field.
"The ch has to be a product that is accessible to anyone. I don't want to exclude the majority of the ch market."
Ves wasn't sure how he could form a glow dampening field from his existing selection of design spirits.
"Maybe I need to create a new one for this. The most suitable candidates are too exclusive to particular groups of ch pilots."
If he created a specific spiritual product that solely focused on suppressing glows, then it would likely be strong enough to et his demands.
However, he couldn't exactly form a spiritual product that possessed the right spiritual attributes related to suppressing glows out of nowhere. He needed to collect the right ingredients, and that sounded very difficult, especially in a rather chaotic place like the Nyxian Gap.
He scratched his head. This problem sounded fairly thorny. He made a note in his implant to look out for anything they ca across or looted from pirates that might contribute to the creation of the right spiritual product for the Sanctuary.
As for the Crystal Lord Mark II, Ves couldn't be more attached to the project. As his second original ch design, he had long daydread of what kind of upgrades and changes he wanted to make in order to turn it into a ch that was ready for the modern battlefield!
The crystal aspect of the ch needed to be maintained, or else it wouldn't do its na justice.
As a ch specifically designed to counter other laser-ard chs, Ves studied the MTA's component library extensively for a better and more practical crystal to place on the center of the chest.
Surprisingly, he found plenty of suitable substitutes to the original alien crystal. These were human-developed products, so they lacked much of the mystery and unknown applications developed by long-dead aliens.
While that made them simpler to make and easier to understand, their power level wasn't as high as he expected.
"The energy absorption and retaliation functionality are both roughly similar to the products of the crystal builder civilization." Ves noted as he continued to browse the list.
He felt it was a bit of a pity to leave aside alien tech for human tech. However, he had no choice, as the alien crystal technology did not progress and advance because all of its original researchers were long extinct.
Unless Ves founded a research institution that specifically deciphered the alien chanisms of the crystal builder tech, he could forget about obtaining improved alien crystals.
This was sothing that required a major investnt, but Ves wasn't confident at all that it would pay off in the end.
Ves was a ch designer, not a component developer! Swapping outdated parts for newer ones was a normal approach towards updating old designs.
He just felt a bit depressed because the slightly alien nature of the ch was one of its defining characteristics. Its strange head that consisted of nurous holes that shone like stars looked very ominous. The vapor from the Festive Cloud Generator leaking from those cavities added even more mystique to the machine.
Thinking about the obvious alien influences in the appearance of the original Crystal Lord, Ves couldn't help but scratch his head once again.
"What was I thinking?"
The ch simply looked too weird. Compared to many other ch models on the market, the Crystal Lord Mark I clearly didn't look human enough!
From a marketing standpoint, it made a lot more sense to morph the Crystal Lord Mark II into a more classical humanoid ch.
Yet a part of him wanted to resist this change. As logical as it sounded, he felt he would deprive the Crystal Lord line of its alien heritage in a permanent fashion.
Ves did not wish to cripple or warp the original Crystal Leader fragnt which his mother had bestowed to him in the past.
It was that simple act of his ghostly mother that originally set him on the path working with design spirits to empower his ch designs!
"A revision of an old design doesn't have to preserve the original traits. That doesn't an I should do so in this situation."
He needed to think very deeply on the current and future role of the Crystal Lord. Depending on his choices, he could steer the Crystal Lord into a more human incarnation or he may insist on keeping its original alien character.
Even if he settled this choice, he also had to make other changes to the ch. The original Crystal Lord didn't excite the market enough and the Mark II might follow the sa route if he did not change more aspects of the ch.
"Does it need another gimmick?"
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