Published at 22nd of October 2026 7:03 am

Chapter 7604: Privilege of Power

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Cooperating with a strong partner such as the Terran Alliance came with a lot of advantages and disadvantages.

Ves greatly benefited from the former, so he had little choice but to put up with the latter.

He and the Terrans had forged a solid understanding of what to expect from each other. Though Ves may be the nominal leader of the Arboreal Project, he still had to go to greater lengths to accommodate the demands of his clients.

He did not mind working with control freaks. The Terrans were decisive and competent. They knew what they wanted and knew what they were doing for the most part. They just needed his input to make sure the Woodsap System worked as intended.

Even so, Ves did not acquiesce to every request like a doormat.

There were times where he still needed to abide by his principles.

"Absolutely not!" Ves shouted back at the latest Terran flunky who opened a communication channel with him. "What happened to the Poison Willows is tragic, but I have already accounted for that. Experimental works tend to produce highly unstable results. It is normal to expect failure. The core Woodsap mech designs completely lack the destabilizing factors that caused those variants to mutate out of control. In fact, I have gone back to my work and implemented additional guard rails and safeguards to reduce the chance of accidents even further."

Though the Terran official looked intimidated, he did not back down on his own responsibilities.

"Our department cannot accept this answer, Professor Larkinson. We are no strangers to accidents when it comes to rampaging biotechnology products. We are the silent guardians that keep our biotechnology alive and safe. Our work has prevented the proliferation of over 99 percent of dangerous and highly risky biotech output. Where the common folk sees innovation, we see disasters in the making. We are not opposed to new inventions, but we cannot abide by the reckless introduction of too many new technologies that have not been proven to be safe."

Ves groaned and placed his palm on his face. "The Devos Ancient Clan told me that it has already applied for and received all of the necessary approvals and exemptions. Even if you are dissatisfied, you should speak with my Terran partners first."

"We have already done so, professor." The boring man responded. "We are not entirely satisfied with the accelerated development and testing process of a product that introduces so many new technological applications at once, but... our superiors have ’encouraged’ us to be more lenient than normal. We are not blind to the pressure of warfare and the necessity of expedience. That does not mean we can tolerate everything. There is one problem that your Devosan allies cannot speak on your behalf, and that is the highly mutatable characteristics of your ’third order living mechs’."

Ves adopted a stubborn expression and crossed his arms. "My third order living mechs are a well-documented phenomenon. I have already defended the right for my living mechs to exist in a highly publicized tribunal in the past. While they sound like sources of trouble, almost every mech pilot who has actually made use of my products has come to love the interactivity and mutual dependence. Living mechs are not wild exobeasts that go berserk at the drop of a hat. They are living companions who take on a role that is reminiscent of that of ancient horses of hunting hounds. As long as our soldiers manage their relationships with their living mechs with sincerity, they will always become greater than the sum of their parts."

The Terran bureaucrat patiently listened to the response, but remained unmoved.

"We do not deny the many benefits of making active use of your living mechs, but that does not excuse the potential liabilities. According to known data, your living mechs and particularly your third order ones have a rare habit of defying their own software programming. Even more alarming, the more your third order living mechs have ’grown’, the greater their ability to overcome their own hardware limitations and restrictions. This is highly concerning to our department because they can defy their human pilots at any time and act autonomously. It does not take an incident as extreme as what happened to the Poison Willows to cause a disaster. Just a single Woodsap mech stationed in the middle of a city may decide to forcibly activate and launch an alpha strike at an adjacent apartment complex."

"That is insane!" Ves wanted to tear his hair out! "If I am being absolutely honest, such a possibility cannot be ruled out. However, living mechs have no reason to attack their own owners and partners unless you give them one! I do not think that any of you are stupid enough to mistreat and abuse your living mechs. I have already emphasized this rule in all of the instruction manuals. As long as you treat them as respectfully as intelligent pets, they will not turn against you. In fact, their loyalty is a boon, because they are even more protected against third party hacking or tampering. They will always recognize the right side."

This discussion proceeded to drag on for a few minutes.

Though the bureaucrat sounded like he was determined to enforce Terran law on the Arboreal Project, Ves simply stuck to his guns and refused to budge!

He absolutely did not want to lock his Woodsap mechs to the second order! That seemed like an absolute regression in his eyes! Many future Terran customers would definitely suffer from the lack of benefits that came with fighting alongside the best version of a living mech!

Now that the talks went in a circular direction, the Terran official finally lost patience.

"Your continued refusal to comply with our demands will exacerbate the problem, professor. We cannot allow our prime Terran militaries to adopt new biomechs that are not under the absolute control over their human owners and operators. If you persist in holding your current stance, then we may be compelled to delay or suspend the release of your Woodsap mechs until you have reconsidered."

Feh.

If Ves was still an ordinary Journeyman or Senior Mech Designer, then he would definitely quake in his boots.

A regulator from a first-class government agency possessed a massive amount of power!

It was a pity that he talked to the wrong guy today.

Who was Ves?

He was a tier 2 galactic citizen!

While the other man did a very good job at ignoring this fact, that did not mean he could dictate reality.

That power was reserved for high-ranking mech pilots!

Compared to ordinary space peasants or low-tier galactic citizens, Ves had already transcended many of the shackles that held back the masses.

Even if he flagrantly violated the rules, human society itself would try its best to bend around his outrageous actions and decisions!

This was one of the fundamental lessons that Ves had learned about status and power.

After corresponding with other high-tier galactic citizens in the past year, Ves found out that he was hardly the most extreme individual to abuse his status.

The Polymath and the Evolution Witch had done much worse!

Of course, their vastly greater power and influence afforded them the leeway to go so far.

Once the tedious call finally ended, Ves dropped his amiable and diplomatic smile.

"How tiresome." He sighed. "It seems like mech designers at this level spend more time on arguing and paperwork than designing mechs."

It couldn’t be helped. The stakes were much higher when it came to designing first-class multipurpose mechs.

As a newly independent nation, the Terran Alliance had fallen into a precarious situation. It needed the best of the best in order to defend its territories and beat back the aliens. Yet it also needed to do so the Terran way. Rules had always been an integral part of Terran culture.

This was why the bureaucrat tried to persuade Ves to change his mind despite the fact that it was a nearly futile effort.

Rules were also why the Devosans and other allies could not stop this fellow from bothering Ves.

No matter.

As a tier 2 galactic citizen, his intentions trumped ordinary considerations. Ves knew that he did not have to do anything to sweep this problem under the rug. The Terrans themselves would find a way to make it go away, either by carving out yet another exemption, or dig up and proceed to invoke some obscure rule or law that originated several thousand years ago.

After taking care of a few other administrative chores, Ves eventually turned towards his augmented assistant.

"What’s next on the agenda?"

His friend and assistant Gavin waved his secured data pad. "I have good news for you, Ves. The collies have made a substantial breakthrough in their research. They have apparently devised a way to activate or stimulate a handful of the artifacts and other objects created by the deathborn. They would be happy to show off their progress and obtain your input on them. The Farseer did issue an unusual request, though."

"What does she want?"

"She requests... you bring your daughter on tomorrow’s visit."

"My daughter... wait."

Children normally had nothing to do with the ominous deathborn race, but that did not necessarily apply to his second daughter!

One of the most precious gifts that he imbued to his daughter was a companion spirit that had grown up alongside her since birth.

Different from her older sister, Andraste’s companion spirit possessed a strong affinity towards death.

In the early years, Ves and his wife had grown quite concerned that her abnormal companion spirit would affect her personality in a detrimental fashion.

However, Andraste actually formed a loud, boisterous and active personality, which completely contrasted with her cute but much more negatively-aligned companion spirit!

Gloriana did not understand how this could be, but it made a lot of sense to Ves.

Companion spirits may be derived from their principals, but the former gained enough separation from the latter that they could follow completely different paths!

The strong nurturing from her parents combined with her bright and happy childhood also helped with counteracting any possible adversarial effects from her companion spirit.

Even so, when faced with the Farseer’s request, Ves still felt reluctant to bring her daughter close to those evil and blood-soaked artifacts.

There was a big difference between getting into contact with a ’clean’, ’pure’ and relatively ’upright’ death goddess like Helena and getting close to foul and utterly evil deathborn artifacts!

Yet... if anyone in the combined fleet could interface with those messy remains, Yaika most certainly possessed the greatest potential!

"I will ask Andraste whether she is willing to take the risk." Ves responded after a moment of thought. "There is definitely an element of danger involved with this. You can tell the Farseer that she must implement enough safety measures to satisfy my criteria. I will not let my daughter get in touch with anything that is either obviously dangerous or too large. This is not the time to conduct boundary-breaking experiments. It is already enough to find out whether Yaika can successfully interface or manipulate the smallest deathborn devices."

Ves was not willing to turn his daughter into a test subject. Other people could fulfill this job. It was incredibly easy to impart other humans with death-aligned companion spirits. He could even harvest the required ingredients from the deathborn artifacts to increase compatibility if necessary!

The reason why he did not object to letting Andraste come into contact with the potentially dangerous battlefield spoils was because he possessed a vested interest in this research.

He not only wanted to gain a much better understanding of a future major enemy, but also aspired to incorporate their strengths into the next edition of the Phobos and possibly other mech designs!

For example, Ves believed that a death-aspected mass production model would definitely thrive when thrown into combat against the mutated voribugs!

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