The Mech Touch

Ves did not completely disregard his wife's warning. After making some initial decisions on how to 'improve' his future daughter, he eventually set aside his thoughts on this new personal project and focused on finishing his work assignments.

It was only when he completed his quota for the day that he had time to puzzle out his Daughter Project in peace. He returned to his personal workshop and began to list out his methods and resources.

At this point in his career, he developed quite an extensive spiritual toolbox.

Today, he added another spiritual technique to his collection.

Spiritual human embryo engineering was his ambitious method of strengthening his children. He hoped he would be able to impart as much strength as he was capable of passing to them without breaking them or dictating their future.

While there was an inevitable degree of influencing involved if he embarked on this road, he felt it was worth it. After all, the gifts he intended to bestow on his children would give them extra options instead of taking their choices away from them. They could choose not to make use of their extraordinary talents, though admittedly this was not a likely outcome.

After all, if a teenager had the choice to become a waste plant technician or the president of a powerful state, the kid would definitely choose the latter!

This example essentially encapsulated his purpose behind his planned actions. If his first daughter aimed high and chose to pursue an ambitious vocation, then Ves hoped that his intervention gave her a much better chance of doing well.

"Even if she ends up choosing to become a leader like her mother wanted, then the aid that I have given to her should also help in that capacity."

The need to provide his daughter with a universal enhancement was quite a challenging project. This was because if he wanted to do anything more complex than pumping her with bland life-attributed energy, he needed to impart her with a more specific and purposeful design.

The more elaborate his spiritual design, the more it could drive his daughter into a specific direction, which was exactly what he wanted to avoid.

This contradiction put him into a bind until he realized he might have a way of having it both ways.

"I'll just make the spiritual augment alive."

He already had a ready model for that in the form of his companion spirits. So far, both Sharpie and Blinky provided immense help to their partners.

Yet designing and imparting a companion spirit to a small and tiny embryo was vastly different from doing so for an adult human who was already spiritually active.

When Ves recalled how weak his daughter's spirituality registered to his senses, his expression became pensive.

"She's too weak to carry much weight."

Of course, that was incredibly obvious considering she was only a few days old! The real problem was that Ves didn't expect her spirituality to grow to the point of matching that of a spiritual adult while she was still calmly growing inside Gloriana's womb.

If he wanted to impart her with a companion spirit as powerful as Sharpie in its initial form, then he at least had to wait until she grew into an adolescent who activated her spiritual potential.

"I can't wait that long!"

The earlier his daughter gained an advantage, the better her foundation and the further she could go in the future.

Just like how Gloriana purchased an extremely expensive gene package from the MTA, Ves had to find a way to make a significant upfront investment in order to give his daughter the greatest help he was able to provide.

This was why he didn't immediately give up on the plan to implant his daughter with a companion spirit.

"It's the best way I can strengthen her without directly influencing her inclinations."

While companion spirits acted like an extension of the people they were attached to, they were also discrete existences who possessed a high degree of autonomy. Ves basically hosted two separate personalities in his mind.

The relationship was probably similar to the one between Cynthia and the Superior Mother.

All of this meant that Ves could program the companion spirit of his daughter in a more specific way without worrying too much about letting all of that bleed over to his child.

"Of course, I can't rule out that at least some influencing will take place."

They would become part of the same whole, after all. Yet Ves had enough confidence that his scheme would work as intended, especially if he focused his attention on the separation between the pair.

He began to design a tentative draft in his mind.

"First, it has to be a cat." He stated.

A loose image of a cat emerged. The animal's exact shape and appearance didn't matter too much. He just wanted to provide his daughter with a trusty companion who she could rely on for her entire life.

While he could have chosen to design something more impressive or complex like an outright guardian angel, Ves did not want the companion spirit to become too domineering.

"The great things about cats are that they are just pets."

A more humanoid entity would be able to manipulate his daughter to a much more extensive degree, and that was exactly what he didn't want. A young kitty who grew up alongside a little girl was a lot more casual. The cat was supposed to grow into a form that better complemented his daughter instead of the other way around.

As long as he was able to pull this off, then regardless of the functions of the cat, he would definitely be able to guarantee that his daughter would start off with a decently powerful spirit.

The System oddly scored his own Spirituality as 4.9. While he didn't feel drastically more powerful after acquiring Blinky, he definitely gained a lot of benefits.

The challenge was accomplishing this in the first place. Ves couldn't simply pile up a huge rock on top of a narrow wooden stick. The stick would instantly break from the excess weight acting on its structure.

In order to resolve this problem, he either had to lighten the rock or strengthen the stick.

"I'll have to start off with a spiritual seed." He murmured. "It doesn't have to contain much. It just has to carry the essentials along with a general framework for its early growth."

As long as this companion spirit seed successfully took root in his daughter's miniscule spirituality, then he would be able to accelerate both their growth by watering the seed with universal life energy derived from a high-grade serum.

While Ves could have chosen to feed this energy directly into his daughter, he thought that was a terrible idea because the growth would become completely forced and uncontrolled.

It was a lot better to use the companion spirit as a vector. As a purely spiritual lifeform, the cat was a lot more capable of absorbing, digesting or processing any spiritual energy it absorbed.

In fact, Ves even thought about making another version of Blinky for his daughter. Regardless of what she chose to become in the future, there was always a use for an abundant amount of spiritual energy!

Yet when Ves thought about slicing another fragment from the Unending One's spiritual remains, he was not that certain whether it was a good idea to put a piece of a dark god in her mind.

"Wait.. I have a safer option!"

He briefly focused his attention on Blinky.

Mrow?

Ves grinned. "Yes, you will do."

Even if using an ingredient derived from Blinky would result in a weaker outcome than going straight to the source, it was probably a much safer course of action.

Unlike Ves who already possessed a mature and firm spirit, his daughter was completely defenseless. She wouldn't be able to defend herself against direct malicious influences when she was still young.

"In fact, this is another major purpose of her upcoming design spirit."

A companion spirit could also function as a protector and guardian. While they were most effective against spiritual threats, there were also ways to allow them to defend against more material threats.

His daughter's pet didn't have to be as strong as Lucky, at least not at the start. Her parents would make sure that she was well-protected.

What actually worried Ves was how well he would be able to protect her when she grew up. If he and his daughter ever parted ways for some reason, then he wouldn't be able to come to her aid in person.

However, Ves wouldn't have to worry as much if her companion spirit already experienced a couple of decades of growth. At that point, the cat that grew up alongside his daughter would probably be able to match Goldie or Blinky's direct combat strength.

He was becoming more excited at the thought. With a strong, wiley and loyal spiritual companion by her side, his daughter would always have an ace up her sleeve even if every other layer of protection failed!

When Ves reviewed the current list of parameters that he had set, he already felt he had the basis of a decent design.

"It's not enough, though."

All of the parameters that he had set so far were necessary but basic functions for his daughter's companion spirit. They were never supposed to be the central features of the cat.

"The reason why Blinky is centered around absorbing and digesting spiritual energy is because I need it for my work. It's not a given that my daughter will follow my footsteps, so it isn't necessary for this to become a core feature."

He wanted to keep this capability as a secondary function in order to leave space for other capabilities. If his daughter ever reached a point in her life where she needed access to more spiritual energy, then her companion spirit could steadily evolve in this direction and turn it into a primary function.

For now, Ves felt his future children would be better served if he focused on granting them a different advantage.

"Let me think…" Ves rubbed his chin.

Gloriana wanted their first child to become a leader, so the gene package she chose inserted genes into the embryo that were designed to help her in this capacity.

The genetic blueprint designed and adapted by Witshaw & Seneca contained proven gene sequences that enhanced a human individual's leadership, charisma, empathy, acting and many other relevant skills. Even beauty was part of the package as everyone who spent this much money expected their designer baby to look good.

Although Formula S-635006-CIN was indeed capable of setting up designer babies to become political leaders, there was no rule that stated that his daughter had to become the next matriarch or anything.

"All of these skills are highly relevant to leading states or major organizations, but they are not limited to that."

Ves possessed the same skills as well, but he was primarily a mech designer. He found a way to leverage all of them into improving his work.

"Which skill should I focus on augmenting, then?"

After a brief consideration, he eventually settled on empathy.

He wanted his daughter to inherit his ability to understand and communicate with different lifeforms. No matter what she chose to become in the future, it was always helpful to make more friends and gain a greater understanding of her enemies.

This would become her greatest advantage if she chose to become a politician, but it was still useful in many other professions, particularly if they involved a lot of people.

Still, the only caveat of this choice was that his daughter might center so much on this advantage that she would follow her mother anyway.

Ves suddenly began to doubt this choice.

He really wanted to improve his daughter's empathy because he derived a lot of advantages out of it himself, but he did not want to exert the same influence as his wife.

"I... need to rethink my approach."