The Mech Touch

The successful development of a simple computer opened up the possibility of creating more powerful ones.

Whether Ves primarily focused on quantity and covered much of the Blinkyverse with crude processor, or decided to focus on quality by rapidly climbing up the technology tree, it had become a lot more realistic for him to turn the Blinkyverse into the spiritual version of a cranial implant!

Unfortunately, just because it was possible did not mean it was easy. Modern computing systems had millenia of development behind them. They not only incorporated the sum of human ingenuity and accumulation, but also assimilated bits and pieces of reverse-engineered alien technology as well!

Even if Ves did not have to develop all of these advancements from scratch and could just copy all of the existing works instead, it was still incredibly troublesome to develop decent computing systems in an entirely new universe.

Ves and Gloriana estimated that they would have to devote decades of their life in order to reproduce a spiritual computing system that possessed enough processing to provide material assistance in their design work!

The cold hard truth was that neither of them could spare the time to do all of this thankless work.

They were mech designers, not computer engineers. It was a waste of time for them to invest an excessive amount of time into designing computer systems. They needed to keep doing what was best and focus on completing their mech design projects.

Given all of these circumstances, Ves decided to no longer invest too much time into furthering the development of a gigantic spiritual supercomputer.

"What will you do, then?" Gloriana asked as she placed her hands on her hips. "You can't give up now! The potential of a spiritual supercomputer is too great. This may be your only way to increase your processing power and amplify the amount of work you can do. If you start to fall behind, our entire clan will fall behind as well. It is imperative for you to finish this project."

Ves let out a deep breath. "Just because I don't want to waste my time on this anymore doesn't mean that I have given up. I just think that it is better to leave this kind of work to the professionals who are specialized in this kind of stuff. I'm quite fond of delegation, you know. Just like how I have delegated much of the development of companion spirit fruit trees to the T Institute, I can just pass off this spiritual computer engineering work to other specialists."

His wife blinked at that. "If you go down this route, it will be hard for you to keep your Blinkyverse secret."

"That's fine." Ves replied with a shrug. "I never really insisted on keeping it confidential. So what if other people know? This is the Age of Dawn, Gloriana. People have begun to do plenty of amazing stuff nowadays. Creating a new miniature universe is not that big of a deal. Besides, just because people know it can be done does not mean they can replicate this feat. It is actually quite difficult to create a decent internal space. It is even more difficult to grow and expand its volume."

The Imaginary Universe Method was actually an amazing cultivation method. It had been derived from other cultivation methods and had especially been customized for Blinky.

Together with the refinements and optimizations made by Cynthia, Blinky had a large chance of becoming a spiritual powerhouse in his own right!

"Who do you want to delegate this work to, then?" His wife asked next. "Do you want to assign a new project to the T Institute?"

Ves shook his head. "No. This project is too big for our research institute. No offense to them, but none of the existing researchers have a strong background in this stuff. The T Institute will almost certainly need to hire a lot of specialists, and given that it is still based on the Dragon's Den, the new recruits can only be second-raters as best. If I want to gain the capabilities of a first-class cranial implant, I will need to gain the assistance of the best possible first-class specialists."

"So you have decided to look for help outside of our clan."

"Yes."

"There are only a handful of first-class powers that you can cooperate with. Will you work with the Terrans?"

"No." Ves shook his head. "I thought about it. I am sure that the cultivators among them will be interested in my spiritual supercomputer, but... I don't think that the Terran ancient clans are united enough to pool their resources and manpower together. I would much prefer to work with the Transhumanist Faction. Human augmentation is their bread and butter, and I bet that they are actively working on reviving a lot of ancient cultivation stuff. I can think of no better candidate to cooperate with. The Transhumanists have much to gain from this research, so I think they will be the most enthusiastic out of all of the possible parties."

"Hmmm... I can understand your logic. Have you been in contact with the Transhumanist Faction as of late?"

"No, but that doesn't mean much. Just because I have developed a more intimate relationship with the Survivalists doesn't mean my relationship with the Transhumanists have cooled. I know how the mechers work. They are only interested in research and progress. As long as I present a good enough case, I am sure that they will be eager to work on this promising project. They might have already developed their own version of a spiritual computing system. It doesn’t hurt to try my luck."

He went through with this idea. Later that night, he entered a more private section of Diandi Base and called his most familiar contact from the Transhumanist Faction.

The projection of Master Termaneo Dervidian appeared after a minute. The man looked a lot brighter and more vigorous since Ves last saw him. It was as if he shed another layer of his weak and original humanity.

This was a clear sign that the RA Master Mech Designer already benefited from the latest generation of augmentations that his faction had developed as of late.

"Good day, Professor Larkinson." The projection of Master Dervidian bowed his head. "This communication request is not in our schedule, so I believe you have reason to approach me at this time."

It appeared that Dervidian was a bit pressed for time. He did not bother with any small talk and went straight to the point.

Since that was the case, then Ves needed to keep it short.

"I have started a completely new research project that should be of great relevance to you. Let me give you a summary of what I have worked on as of late..."

It took Ves 10 minutes to compress his goals and ongoing research to Master Dervidian. While Ves had much more to say, he did not want to explain too much only to find out that the Transhumanists could not assist him in this capacity.

"Interesting." Master Dervidian eventually said. "Please wait for a minute."

The man fell in thought as he mulled over what he heard while also using his cranial implant to access any relevant information in the Red Association's internal database.

Once a minute had passed, the Master Mech Designer looked at Ves with an intrigued expression.

"It is rather impressive for you to create an entire universe made out of E energy. We already expected that your companion spirits have high potential, but to be able to birth a complete new universe that contains its own laws of physics is a peak accomplishment. The fact that you can convert a fraction of its expanding internal space into a viable and working computing system has great promise. You have made the right decision to come to us for help. We have the knowledge and expertise to turn your primitive handmade proof of concept into a modern E-supercomputer."

Master Dervidian began to share a few details on what the Transhumanist Faction had been working on as of late.

It turned out that the Transhumanists had indeed begun to work on developing digital systems in a spiritual format. They had already recognized the potential of turning spiritual constructs into computers!

The biggest difference was that the Transhumanists had not put any work into storing these prototype spiritual computer systems into separate pocket spaces that people could carry with ease.

This was a capability that only Blinky possessed for the time being!

"E-objects are relatively fragile by nature and easy to break." Dervidian explained as he used the Red Association's definition of a spiritual construct. "It does not matter how well they perform when any enemy with the capability to launch E-attacks can easily knock out our work. Defense has always been our greatest concern. We have been forced to divert much of our efforts into developing defensive measures, but we have discovered to our dismay that high-ranking mech pilots can defeat them with ease. The only effective means we can use to protect our E-object from external harm is to defend them with our own high-ranking mech pilots."

That was anything but ideal. Expert pilots, ace pilots and god pilots had better things to do than to babysit a fancy spiritual computer.

Ves understood what this meant. He could already predict what Master Dervidian wanted to say next.

"Are you interested in my method of creating a separate universe inside my companion spirit?" He asked.

"We are." Master Dervidian frankly admitted. "If we can create internal universes that can be attached to any companion spirit, then we can carry around much more powerful and useful E-objects without easily exposing them to external threats. The strategic possibilities are endless, especially if the internal universe can accommodate matter as well as E-energy. You would be making a great contribution if you can donate your unique method to our faction."

"It is not that easy to create a separate universe inside a companion spirit." Ves warned. "I only managed to do it because I took advantage of special conditions. I am not entirely opposed to sharing my method to you, but... you will have to adapt it to your own circumstances if you want to create a comparable internal universe."

"Let us discuss this further..."

A negotiation ensued between the two. Both sides wanted something from each other, and their desires were strong enough that they made quick progress.

Although Ves was not willing to expose every secret relating to his companion spirit, he knew that he needed to share a lot of important details about his cultivation method in order to satisfy the Transhumanist Faction's greed.

After a lot of haggling, Ves and Dervidian eventually struck a new deal.

The short version of it was that Ves agreed to share the Imaginary Universe Method Version 2.0 to the Transhumanist Faction. He promised to transfer the complete text aside from a few redactions that revealed too much sensitive information.

While the outdated version of this cultivation method lacked the optimizations made by his mother, Ves was sure that the Transhumanists could rely on their force of cultivators to flesh out their own versions!

In exchange for sharing this crucial information, the Transhumanists agreed to set up a new research team that was devoted to computerizing the Blinkyverse.

This research team would not strictly be responsible for developing E-computers from scratch.

The Transhumanist Faction already set up existing research departments for this important purpose.

Instead, the new research team would focus on translating existing designs of standard E-computers into Blinkyverse-adapted E-computers!

This effectively allowed Ves to benefit from the work that the Transhumanist Faction put into developing intangible computer systems. This was ideal for him as he didn't have to invest a large amount of precious time to upgrade his spiritual processing power!

Both Ves and the projection of Master Dervidian smiled at each other while shaking hands. This was another win-win agreement for them. Not only would be they sharing valuable progress, but their relationship had also grown a bit closer than before!