Unlike the Crossers, the Glory Seekers all shared the sa mindset.
"You are a ch designer. Fighting is the last thing you should do, sir." Venerable Eona Ballentine of the Glory Seekers said as she looked at Ves as if he was sick. "As the son of the Superior Mother, it is our duty and our mission to sow death on your behalf. If you are ever in a position where you are forced to fight for your life, then we have failed. That will never happen as long as we breathe."
Venerable Olivia Remis, the other Handmaiden of Death, nodded in agreent.
"No one is good at everything, sir. Aside from our Supre, anyone lesser than her can only excel at one's respective phase of their lives. You are the embodint of the life phase and a creator that spawns all beginnings. As powerful and as magnificent as you are, it is clear that your talents lie in creation, not destruction. We are the agents of your holy sister and the destroyers of your foes."
According to the adherents of hexism, n or 'boys' traditionally corresponded to the first phase of existence. Since Ves possessed so many strong associations with life, the Hexers all developed the notion that he was the ultimate good boy!
Naturally, good boys needed to be protected by as many strong and valiant won as possible!
"I don't even know why I bothered to ask your opinion." Ves grumbled and as he rubbed his face.
He continued to tour various places in order to collect more input. There was no such thing as too much input. The more people he asked, the more angles he collected. He already started to look at his available options in a much more comprehensive light.
After he concluded his brief visit to the Glory Seekers, he sought out the Aduc Family next.
With the help of Gaia's powerful support, the Aduc Family managed to take rapid root in the Krakatoa Star Sector.
Gaia Worldcrafting Services was only a recent entrant in the competitive terraforming industry, but already made a na for itself in this sector.
Although the Aducs hated rush jobs, they were realistic enough to know that many pioneers wanted to settle and start living on the planets they picked out as soon as possible.
Though Gaia Worldcrafting Services did not win any records when it ca to speedy deliveries, the quality of the planets terraford by this upstart company quickly stood out for their pleasant climates and lack of problems!
The Green Dream, the Aduc Family's flagship capital terraforming ship, was pretty much never present in the Davute System. She traveled around from one star system to another in order to perform the biggest and most cumberso terraforming assignnts.
Even though Gaia Worldcrafting Services had drastically raised its prices in order to temper the demand for its services, the Aduc Family still received a lot of commissions!
Relatively few Aducs remained in Davute due to all of these jobs. The family did not want to stay idle and wanted to earn as much money as possible in order to build up its foundation in the Red Ocean.
Fortunately for Ves, the Aduc Family always made sure to station a fixed contingent in Davute. These were the specialists who had been assigned to work in the T Institute which they partly owned.
Ves had many dealings with Pesca Aduc. She was a good exobiologist and was particularly interested in ecology and such.
While her specialty was not a perfect fit for the research that took place in T Institute, her high birth ant that she knew how to take charge and handle administration.
In the years since Ves worked with the T Institute, he had few complaints on how Director Pesca Aduc ran the jointly-owned research organization. Her frequent contact with Gaia had not only strengthened her activated spirituality, but also granted her insights beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Visiting her at her workplace was quite an ordeal.
p
The entrance to the T-1 Building wasn't on any maps. Ves had to go through various secret entrances and go through nurous mandatory security checks before he got through.
It was all worth it, though. He imdiately entered into a different world once he stepped inside the amazing lab.
Trees and plants of various kinds were planted in bios that were locked behind transparent walls.
Many of the larger trees were already growing various fruits that glinted in the light that shone down from above.
Different exobeasts and designer beasts road throughout the artificial environnts. Many of them were unique and one-of-a-kind. Ves could sense the growing spiritualities of these extraordinary creatures.
Ves looked at each of them as either potential design spirits or potential ingredients for other purposes.
Whether they would turn into the forr or the latter depended on their developnt potential. Not every mutated beast was worth nurturing, especially since the T Institute and its parent organizations only had so much space to grow all of these animals.
"Grow well, little fellows."
After passing through nurous corridors, he entered a lab where a group of researchers in pristine white lab coats were monitoring an ongoing experint.
Ves looked through the reinforced window and saw that the current test centered around a mber of the pakklaton race.
He happened to recognize the bird-like sentient alien that was in the process of commanding a group of feral exobeasts belonging to different species.
Normally, these dangerous alien predators would have reacted with intense hostility to other species. They would have torn each other as well as the tall avian apart if left to their own devices!
Yet what actually occurred was that each carnivorous beast obediently stood in several neat rows.
When the female pakklaton raised her winged arm, the creatures all ran around in a circular route while maintaining the exact sa pace.
If Ves didn't know any better, he would have thought that these exobeasts had all undergone months or years of beast training.
In reality, the creatures had all been randomly taken from their bios and dumped in front of the pakklaton test subject for the first ti in their short lives!
"How is it going, Pesca?" Ves casually asked as he approached the side of the Director of the T Institute.
Pesca Aduc curled her lips downwards. "My day could be better, if that is what you were asking. Subject 5 showed great promise in the first few years, but her growth and developnt has stagnated as of late. Many of her fellow pakklaton test subjects have exceeded her in terms of spiritual developnt and ability proficiency."
As her number suggested, Subject 5 was one of the first pakklaton prisoners that the Larkinsons had converted into a test subject. She had taken part in one of the first research projects related to the developnt of companion spirits and provided a considerable amount of useful data that helped him refine this remarkable spiritual application.
Ves was quite chard by Subject 5's ability to dominate exobeasts, but so far she had never succeeded in taking control over larger, stronger and more intelligent creatures.
She also couldn't control too many creatures. Ves could already see that her spirituality was straining and struggling to exert fine control over so many different exobeasts.
"It's not that surprising for her growth to stagnate." Ves comnted. "She was one of the earliest recipients of a companion spirit. I did not add a lot of structure to the design of my creations back then, so there is a huge degree of variance between the strength and abilities of every spiritual pet. The newer generation of companion spirits are much stabler in this regard."
This was one of the advantages of founding the T Institute. Although much of the research on spirituality and related phenona were rather vague, speculative, tentative and ssy, the lessons and insights that Ves gained from the results helped with developing more refined spiritual applications.
Ves continued to discuss about Subject 5 and the state of companion spirit research with Director Pesca for a while.
It wasn't until the researchers concluded the current round of testing that Ves addressed his actual purpose.
Director Pesca Aduc briefly fell into thought.
"I don't really understand why you would ever think about becoming a ch pilot. It makes no sense even if you have the ability to do so. You have done great work. There is no one in human space that can do what you can do. I am convinced of that. Even your work in your capacity as a ch designer is not as important as the many new and amazing possibilities that you have brought to life with the help of our institute."
"So you think I should spend even more of my ti on our spiritual research projects?"
"If I were you, I would stop designing chs entirely." Pesca Aduc said. "Please don't judge too quickly. Hear out please. How many ch designers are active in the industry at this ti? There are so many people who are dedicating so much of their lives to designing chs that you are but one among many."
She waved her arm across the entire lab. "This is where you can truly change our entire society. All of the work we have done on spirit trees, companion spirits and breakthrough solutions will shock all of human space if others learn about the results we have gained so far. The Transhumanist Faction's increasing interest in our research is a reflection of how much more valuable your contributions in this area matter. In comparison, your chs are not as remarkable. There are plenty of chs that can satisfy the ch market. Maybe they don't have the sa properties as your living chs, but it is not as if your custors will beco ruined if they can only work with ordinary chs."
She was right. From a societal perspective, Ves' work as a spiritual engineer was much more impactful than his work as a ch designer, at least for the ti being.
Though Ves could continue to invest a huge amount of ti and effort into progressing his design capabilities, he could achieve a lot more if he dedicated himself entirely towards spiritual engineering!
"No one can do what you can do." Pesca Aduc repeated. "While there are other powerful individuals who are able to wield similar powers, none of them have co out with so many different forms of empowernt. Your dedication to researching different spiritual applications that can make people stronger and more capable than before is highly praiseworthy. If you decide to spend less ti on ch design, then our T Institute will truly be able to take off! We will surely be able to help humanity ascend higher than any other race in the Milky Way and surroundings!"
That was a powerful boast, but one that might actually co true if Ves truly beca more serious about his spiritual engineering activities.
Taking ti off his ch design sessions was out of the question to Ves. He would never accept an approach that forced him to abandon the root of his identity.
However, if Ves opted for Spiritual Ascension, he could easily imagine a future where he beca so good at spiritual engineering that he could accomplish a lot more results in much less ti!
This was the perfect way for him to maximize both his ch design and spiritual engineering pursuits!
What was even better was that if Ves beca better at spiritual engineering, his ability to design chs would beco even stronger!
Each of his products would beco a lot more remarkable and useful on the battlefield. His ability to service the needs of ch pilots would skyrocket, primarily because there weren't any other ch designers that could co up with so many powerful spiritual engineering applications!
"You make a good point, Director Pesca."
User Comments
0 comments from readers