If Ves was still an insignificant Apprentice, Leland would have hung up immediately. It was different now. Not only did he become a Journeyman, but he also gained a lot of prominence recently! His recent achievements and mech designs proved that he had a lot of promise. If Ves understood anything about Flashlight, it was that it was willing to break any rule in order to advance its interests! He currently shared a complicated relationship with the military intelligence agency of the Bright Republic. He already performed some missions for Flashlight, and even became one of their external associates. On top of that, Flashlight also became the third-largest shareholder of the Living Mech Corporation. One of their shell companies took over the shares from a shell company answering to the Ministry of Economic Development. Overall, Ves was pleased with this change. As a shareholder, Flashlight never imposed any imperious demands on the running of the LMC. Even when the company fell into a crisis due to the change in market circumstances due to the sandman invasion, they hadn’t disagreed with the measures that Ves suggested to temporarily prop up the company’s earnings. Since Ves had interacted with them long enough to study their mindset, he knew how much they valued him. As a Journeyman with good growth prospects and decent ties to their organization, Flashlight probably considered him to be an important investment! For this reason, Ves believed he could take some liberties and throw around his weight a little. In any case, the favor he requested might be problematic for some people, but not to him. The only issue was the transmission method. Flashlight abhorred sending information over through the galactic net. "While we are willing to extend this favor to you, you’ll have to return to the Bright Republic if you want access to the information." Leland calmly replied after he considered the request. "It’s not that we’re refusing you, but the galactic net is simply too insecure to transmit information of this nature." "Don’t you have encryption or something that can mitigate this problem?" "We do. However, they’re only used to transmit the most essential intel because they’ll be cracked soon enough." Ves palmed his face. This took way too long! "Forget about it then. Can you at least tell me how Venerable Fontain is doing? Has he changed since the end of the war?" "Every expert pilot changes. Especially after a significant event such as a war. I can’t tell you more than that, Ves." "Has he grown stronger, at least?" Leland frowned deeper. "Why are you asking this? What use does this information have for you? While mech designers sometimes inquire after expert pilots, it’s mostly because they are tasked with designing or maintaining their expert mechs." "I’m thinking about getting into the expert mech business myself." Ves spontaneously came up with an excuse. "You know that my cousin Jannzi is an expert candidate who currently pilots one of my Aurora Titans. I want to prepare for the time when I’m commissioned to design her expert mech once she becomes a full-fledged expert pilot. Studying the circumstances of comparable expert pilots helps a lot." Leland remained suspicious of Ves. The timing of this request was very strange, but then again a lot of mech designers were weird. Ves had already shown that he was not exactly the most rational mech designer in the Bright Republic. "Let’s discuss this matter further once you return to the Bright Republic. For now, all you need to know is that Venerable Fontain has entered a slump for some time, but is doing well these days." "How well, exactly?" "Well, it’s no secret in the Mech Corps that he has requested a new expert mech. While expert pilots periodically request new expert mechs, the Mech Corps mostly prefer to keep their existing ones because developing one from scratch is incredibly expensive." Leland didn’t need to tell Ves anything more. After Ves said goodbye to the intelligence operative and ended the call, he parsed the information that Leland revealed. Expert mechs were vital to expert pilots. The machines had to be precisely tailored to their expert pilots in order to bring out the most of their combination. However, Leland was correct that expert pilots often changed over the course of their careers. Most of the time, this wasn’t a big deal as the design teams in charge of developing the expert mech would often implement tweaks to accommodate the changes. "The only reason for an expert pilot to request a new mech is if their expert mech has become too outdated or no longer matches their capabilities." Ves didn’t believe the former was the case. The Mech Corps or the Senior Designers in charge of the expert mech would make this determination themselves. If Ves assumed the latter was the case, then Venerable Fontain had either grown stronger or weaker. Leland’s description about this was rather vague. The spy only briefly mentioned that Venerable Fontain had entered a slump. This meant that the expert pilot definitely suffered from a moment of weakness for a time! Ves bet that he had been directly responsible for this turn of events. He was relieved to hear that Venerable Fontain was doing well again. From the context of the conversation, Ves believed that Leland meant that Venerable Fontain had not only recovered, but grown stronger. "Strong enough to think that minor upgrades won’t be able to accommodate his current capabilities anymore!" Ves therefore concluded that despite being robbed of a spiritual fragment, Venerable Fontain was doing better than ever! He did not have to worry about ruining an expert pilot’s career if he happened to borrow a spiritual fragment from them. Just like Nyxie, they healed the damage and probably became whole again, though they had probably been set back for some time. "It’s only been two years since I’ve published the Aurora Titan. It’s been even longer since I first started to work on its design." Ves furrowed his brows. "This is a very short time for an expert pilot to improve all of a sudden." If Venerable Fontain incurred serious damage and required many months or years to recover, then he would probably be content with his current expert mech. Even if he grew weaker for a time, that was not necessarily a reason to request a new mech. After all, if Venerable Fontain recovered again, then his personal expert mech would fit him like a glove again. No. The only reason for Venerable Fontain to request a new expert mech was because he had rapidly outgrown his current one in these last few years! A very bold assumption came to his mind. It was so bold in fact that Ves did not dare to take it for granted yet. Despite how well it explained Venerable Fontain’s circumstances, the implications were incredibly significant! This was because he believed that Venerable Fontain, and by extension any spiritual entity related to his design spirits, grew stronger through the use of his mechs! While this wasn’t the first time Ves entertained this idea, he never obtained proof. Not enough time had passed for him to determine whether his design spirits definitely benefited and grew stronger due to establishing connections to numerous mech pilots! "In theory, it makes sense, though!" Ves always believed the man-machine connection benefited both the mech and mech pilot. In most cases, the mech pilot probably didn’t strengthen much over time due to their singular connection to their mechs. On the other hand, his design spirits watched a lot of mechs! While they probably didn’t derive a lot of benefits from just one connection, what if they maintained a hundred connections? A thousand connections? Maybe he should check in on the status of his current design spirits. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." He uttered. Ves dredged up the details of his old mech designs from his mind and tried his best to establish a connection to the design spirits that currently resided in his mech designs. He first checked the Blackbeak. As one of his earliest original works, the Blackbeak did not possess a strong X-Factor by his standards. Its design spirit, the Black Phoenix, was purely based on the images he constructed out of his imagination. Once Ves gained a tentative connection to the Black Phoenix, he tried to gauge its spiritual strength level. "It’s actually different from what I’ve imagined!" The System graded the Blackbeak’s X-Factor as C++. This was very weak compared to his more recent mech designs. Yet now that he came in touch with the Black Phoenix, he sensed that it had definitely changed from before! "It’s much more mature!" Not only that, it had also grown more solid and real! Ves loosely estimated that the X-Factor of his Blackbeak model had broken into the B-range! Ves discarded his Blackbeak design from the forefront of his mind and tried to call up his Crystal Lord design. Its design spirit, the crystal builder’s leader, had grown stronger as well! "It’s a little less drastic, though!" He recalled that its X-Factor was originally graded as B-. Ves judged that the Crystal Leader’s X-Factor hadn’t broken into the A-grades, but it had definitely grown stronger than the Black Phoenix. "B+, maybe." The jump in strength was a bit less dramatic than that of the Black Phoenix. Both mechs sold roughly equally, so numbers didn’t explain the disparity. "It’s probably because the Blackbeak started off on a weaker foot. It’s much easier to strengthen its weaker foundation than to improve the sturdier foundation of the Crystal Lord." Ves drew his attention towards the Aurora Titan next. As soon as he recalled its design in all of its glory, he inevitably made contact with Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment. He gained a huge shock as soon as he came into contact. "Powerful!" The aura and presence exuded by the Aurora Titan’s design spirit vastly exceeded his previous interactions with it. It had grown so humongously powerful that Ves suspected that it could even serve as a worthy opponent to Nyxie! Ves immediately grew pensive as he sensed the huge leap in strength. This isn’t the kind of strength a mere fragment should possess! His actions had not gone unnoticed. As soon as Ves observed Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment, the fragment observed Ves as well. A formless greeting emanated from the fragment. It was a friendly and familiar greeting. "I missed you too. Have you been doing well?" The fragment radiated pleasure. "How are you faring in your current role? Have you grown stronger?" The fragment sent out an affirmative pulse, giving Ves the impression that it was very pleased with its current circumstances. As Ves continued to ask a couple more questions, he began to get the feeling that he was communicating with an entirely different entity from what he imagined. This level of strength.. was no longer in the bounds of a mere spiritual fragment! He finally decided to cut to the chase. "Who am I talking to? Are you just a fragment, or are you Qilanxo herself?" A silence ensued before the powerful entity replied with an affirmative. The connection quickly ended as his conversation partner ended the connection. "Qilanxo.. has taken over the role of its fragment?" The proof was undeniable. The ’fragment’ he expected to meet was so strong that it practically matched his memories of Qilanxo’s spiritual strength level back on Aeon Corona VII! The two were so similar that Ves had no choice but to conclude that Qilanxo’s primary spirituality had taken up the role of serving as the Aurora Titan’s design spirit! "What the hell?! When did she conduct this switcheroo?!" What did it mean for Qilanxo’s physical body now that her main spiritual consciousness no longer resided in her massive body? Was she still even alive?! Though the implications of these revelations were immense, Ves did not forget about the answers she provided. The benefit of communicating with a friendly and powerful spiritual entity was that they were articulate and smart enough to answer his inquiries. If Ves interpreted Qilanxo’s answers correctly, then she confirmed his guess that design spirits derived benefits from the usage of the mechs she oversaw! This was one of the results of a symbiotic relationship between a mech and a mech pilot! His design philosophy facilitated this outcome! "I knew this would happen at some level, but it’s more powerful than I’ve imagined!"