Though Ves instructed Gloriana to remain as calm and composed as possible, she couldn’t help but smirk when she sensed the ingredient that her husband was processing.
Ves had never hidden the source of this so-called ‘design seed’. He thought that she would grow angry and blow up at the suggestion of borrowing the strength of one of her former enemies.
He was wrong. Gloriana did not dislike it. It was the opposite. She loved the entire notion!
She hated Aisling Curver back when the Fridayman mech designer was alive. The woman had the temerity to invade someone else’s territory and steal a possession that did not belong to her! It was only right for Master Huron’s student to fail and die, especially when she teamed up with Venerable Ghanso Larkinson.
“Aisling never stood a chance against a superior woman.” Gloriana grinned. “I’ve conquered her dreams, her future and her love. Now, I’m about to take her strength for myself!”
She did not consider it a sign of weakness to absorb the advantages of her enemies. She was merely claiming her rightful spoils.
Despite the unknown implications of grafting a new life form based on a portion of another mech designer’s design philosophy onto her mind, she was confident she could suppress any remnant of Aisling that might cause problems.
Besides, Ves had already ȧssured her that these risks were unlikely to happen.
Gloriana completely relaxed as she lowered her mental defenses to allow Ves to work. Though she could feel Blinky fiddling in her mind in an increasingly more profound and disturbing way, she forcefully clamped down her instinctive reactions. She completely trusted her husband to do what was best for her and their future children.
Her hand softly ċȧrėssed her large belly. She could feel her daughter kick. Did her baby girl feel what mommy was going through at the moment?
At first, Gloriana dismissed this silly notion. Yet as Ves and Blinky continued to shape her new cat, she became a bit more capable of understanding her baby.
Was her daughter… truly aware?
Before she could think about anything else, her mind convulsed as a brand new presence came to life!
“It’s done!” Ves proudly said as he and Blinky drew back in order to behold the latest life they created.
The red spiritual cat that they had molden from Gloriana’s spirituality was fairly strong but not very versatile.
Compared to Vulcan, the new companion spirit consisted of much less ingredients, and the potency of each of them was much less extravagant. The challenge of making the new cat was not a big deal for that reason.
To Ves, the purity and specialization of Gloriana’s new living spiritual augment mattered more than its raw power. Companion spirits grew alongside their human partners anyway so even weak ones would eventually become formidable over time.
He decided to keep this job simple by basing the new main ingredient around a single main ingredient.
The design network that Gloriana wanted to form with the help of her new companion spirit had to be as strong in order to make it worth it. Ves deemed it was not worth the cost to load up her new cat with other major influences.
Gloriana’s spirituality only possessed a limited amount of capacity, so rather than diluting one primary function with another primary function, Ves preferred to concentrate his resources on one of them. That was the best way to produce a strong spiritual ability.
Another reason why Ves kept it simple was because he did not want to take too many risks. Gloriana’s mental resilience was not as strong as that of Ketis or himself.
Due to special reasons, both Ves and his student had exercised their minds and spirits a lot more often and they had withstood a lot of powerful external pressure. They became much more capable of enduring drastic changes in their minds and spirits.
As for Gloriana…
“She’s closer to a typical Journeyman.” He concluded.
Given her relative fragility and the fact that she was also bearing a baby inside her body, Ves decided to take it easy and avoid overcomplicating this procedure.
Combining multiple different powerful ingredients together allowed Ves to create spiritual products with drastically different strengths and abilities that he did not have access to before.
However, the results were less controllable and the original abilities of the ingredients might become lost in the process.
While Ves made use of other ingredients, he kept their proportions small in order to prevent them from overshadowing the main ingredient.
In total, he used up his own spiritual energy, a tiny shard of the Unending One and another tiny fragment of the Golden Cat.
He topped it all off with 10 percent of the universal life energy stored in one of his high-grade life-prolonging treatment serums. While this was a much more powerful ingredient than the other ones, it was entirely used to upgrade and accelerate the growth of the spiritual product so that it started off on a stronger footing.
After all of this effort, a charming and beautiful red cat that was only a bit weaker than Blinky at the start came to life!
Gloriana became entranced as lots of new sensations overtook her mind. The birth of her new companion spirit not only caused her to gain a permanent friend that was essentially a facet of herself, but also allowed her to sense spiritual energy and spiritual life forms to a significantly greater degree!
Of course, she could only do this by borrowing the perception of her new cat, and it was not as attuned as that of Ves. She also gained the ability to manipulate spiritual energy through her cat as well, but since this wasn’t her original strength, she couldn’t do much with it. At most, she could cooperate with Ves a little more effectively now that she could better track his own work.
“Wow.” She said as a red spiritual cat emerged out of her mind. “So this is what I’ve been missing all this time.”
The mȧturė cat that emerged from her mind immediately displayed an imperious and arrogant attitude. The cat directed a loving gaze at Gloriana and her belly but turned up her nose at everyone else, including her own creator!
Maow!
The red cat flew around for a bit before she lowered herself so that Gloriana could hold her new companion spirit in her arms.
It was strange to hold a cat that was not actually solid. Gloriana had already learned the trick to doing so by playing with Blinky, so her new companion spirit did not pass through her arms.
Both human and cat looked at each other with loving and admiring gazes. It was as if they were looking at the most charming and beautiful partners in their lives!
Ves was aware of how wondrous it was to gain and meet a companion spirit for the first time, so he initially did not find their behavior remarkable.
He gradually became more disturbed as three straight minutes went by without any change.
“Uhm, Gloriana?”
His wife finally snapped out of her daze. She grinned as her companion spirit climbed up to stand on her shoulder like a vigilant owl.
“I’ve decided.”
“What did you decide?”
“Alexandria.”
“Alexandria?”
“My new cat.” Gloriana raised her chin. Her companion spirit raised her feline chin as well. “A perfect name for a perfect companion god!”
“Oh. That’s… quite a mouthful.”
Both his wife and the red cat threw a contemptuous look at Ves.
“My cat is not as immature as yours. She’s a queen of cats and deserves to be treated as one.” Gloriana claimed.
Mrow.
Blinky curiously approached Alexandria. The latter did not acknowledge the former.
Maow.
When Blinky came closer, Alexandria grew annoyed and swiped her claw at the Star Cat!
Mrow!
Maow maow maow!
Ves frowned. It seems that Alexandria wasn’t as easy to get along with as his other spirits.
It took a bit of time for Gloriana to settle down and draw herself away from admiring Alexandria and exploring her new capabilities.
“Thank you for this precious gift. Only you could have given me such a beautiful, unique and powerful cat. I’m truly glad you’ve finally shared this benefit with me. You certainly took your time.”
She was also peeved that others like Ketis obtained a companion spirit before herself. It took a lot of nagging to finally push Ves into action!
“I did it because I love, Gloriana.” He sincerely said. “I don’t plan to grant companion spirits to many people, but you definitely deserve to possess one. Take good care of Alexandria. She will continue to grow alongside you. The way you interact with her and leverage her abilities will shape her evolution.”
“I love you too, Ves. You’re the best husband I could ever have.”
The two cuddled for a while as Gloriana recovered from her partial exhaustion while Ves explained the basics about companion spirits.
Mrow. Mrow.
Maow!
Meanwhile, Blinky constantly tried to approach the new cat, only to get rebuffed. Eventually, his pride couldn’t take it any longer. He jumped at the new cat and tried to wrestle her into submission!
Mrow! Mrow!
Maow! Maaaooow!
As the two cats rolled into a violent ball, the older cat quickly gained the upper hand.
Blinky wasn’t only older, but Ves also invested significantly stronger ingredients in his creation. Whether it was the Unending One or the Illustrious One, each of them could hold their own in a fight.
In contrast, Alexandria mainly consisted of half another Journeyman’s design seed. She was not designed for combat and did not possess any advantages in this aspect.
Her only main advantage centered around networking!
Aside from that, the minor shard from the Unending One allowed Alexandria to increase her endurance and speed up her recovery, but not much more. Ves withheld the ability to absorb and digest heterogenous spiritual energy like Blinky due to lack of capacity and an unwillingness to give his wife a dangerous ability.
Ves did not trust anyone else with certain powers! This was why Blinky and Vulcan were the only spirits that could fully devour other kinds of spiritual energy. They were different facets of himself so he did not have to worry about betrayal!
Once Blinky made his point, Alexandria flew back to Gloriana and complained about her treatment.
Maaaoow! Maaaooow!
“Ves! Tell Blinky to stop bullying my beautiful cat!”
“What?”
“I forbid you from allowing Blinky and our other cats to push Alexandria around!”
Ves looked exasperated at his wife. Alexandria was another aspect of Gloriana while Blinky was another aspect of himself. He was quite glad that he managed to get the upper hand this time. It was not fair his wife wanted to shield her companion spirit!
“This is what cats are like, honey.” He said. “What cat doesn’t wrestle against other cats?”
“Alexandria is a queen, not a boorish warrior!” Gloriana insisted!
“Let’s move on to exploring her new capabilities. If my expectations are true, your cat should be able to form a design network that is much more effective than what we have experienced before.”
Gloriana was curious about Alexandria’s capabilities as well, so she instructed her companion spirit to activate her main ability.
Maaaoow!
Alexandria might be a newborn spiritual entity, but she already knew what to do. She didn’t even need to approach Ves in order to form a connection.
The new companion spirit’s eyes glowed as a spiritual connection extended from her body and snapped onto Ves’ mind!
Soon enough, both Ves and Gloriana became a lot more aware of each other. They were not only able to share their perspectives on a deeper level than before, but also comprehended many new insights that ordinarily would have eluded them even with the help of Blinky’s design network!
Ves lit up his eyes as he looked around his workshop. He was able to experience his wife’s perspective in a way that made it seem as if he was her disciple.
The same went for Gloriana. She was able to gain a much deeper appreciation of the wonders of life when she looked at Ves, Blinky or Alexandria.
Their eyes met each other. Due to the strong bond between them, they already knew what the other was thinking about.
“This will definitely change the way we approach our next fabrication runs!”
