"Happy birthday, Marvaine!" "You're one step closer to growing into a big boy!" "Nyaaaaaa~" "Meuw meuw!" "Meow meow meow! "Here is your present!" During the days where Ves and his fellow mech designers frantically analyzed the Superpublished design of the Dullahan Project, a single event briefly caused them to pause their efforts. Marvaine celebrated his fourth birthday! The lucky boy was surrounded by both Larkinsons and cats. A nearby dinner table struggled to hold an entire pile of presents. Gloriana had taken charge of the birthday party from beginning to end. Much of the ground floor of the Royal Mansion as well as its extensive back garden had been transformed into a festive playground themed around dragons. All of the children had changed into different dragon-themed outfits. The birthday boy himself wore a cute little outfit that made him look as if he turned into a humanoid golden dragon. With the help of his companion spirit Denny and the Golden Cat, Marvaine literally turned into the golden boy of the Larkinson Clan on this special day! Of course, the other brats also enjoyed the custom party. "Mraw! I am a dragon! Hear me roar!" Andraste shouted as she hopped around with her red dragon-themed outfit. Aurelia initially thought she was too old and mature to play around like this, but she quickly succumbed once her father forced her to wear a metallic silvery dragon custume. With Mana helping to activate a special effect, Aurelia managed to turn herself into a dragon queen of sorts. The firstborn daughter of Ves and Gloriana did not need to do anything else to gather a following of admiring young dragons! The children laughed and giggled as they took part in several organized activities. From using a toy prop that allowed them to pretend they were breathing dragon fire to letting loose an army of plushy bots for them to defeat, the kids completely let go of all of the pressure and expectations set by their parents and their school teachers! Many prominent members of the Larkinson Clan and its allies had been invited to the Royal Mansion as well. Marvaine's birthday party was not only an excellent opportunity for their own brats to get closer to the heirs of the Larkinson Clan, but also served as a convenient gathering to socialize with each other on a more direct basis. Venerable Brutus Larkinson smiled as he stood next to his younger sister. Both of them stared lovingly at their children as they played with each other without concern. His own two children were among the swarm of pretend dragons. Both of them possessed noticeably different demeanors. Ever since he married Commander Sendra Larkinson, he and his wife initially agreed to raise their son Wexel as a Larkinson and their daughter Terina as a Hexer. In practice, the differences weren't so clear cut. The two children spent most of their time among the Larkinsons in practice. It was just that Terina paid more visits to the Glory Seekers than usual in order to make sure she retained a connection to her other heritage. It didn't matter too much to Brutus. He had left the Hexadric Hegemony for many years just like Gloriana. The Glory Seekers had already started to diverge from their old Hexer ways due to their continued separation from their 'motherland'. If it wasn't for the fact that the Wodin Dynasty still supported and controlled the Glory Seekers in various ways, it would not have been unthinkable for them to merge into the Larkinson Clan by this time! "They grow up so fast." Gloriana gently sighed. "Thank you again for convincing your husband to bestow my children and I with companion spirits." "Hm. It is only right for Ves to share his bounty. He has been sitting on this invention for such a long time that it is criminal for him to withhold it from family such as you and your children." "I am sure that he had his reasons." Gloriana rolled her eyes. It had been a few months since Ves quietly gathered a bunch of prominent friends and family members from the Larkinson Clan and the Glory Seekers. The Larkinson Patriarch took time off his schedule in order to grant each of them their own individual companion spirits. Right now, many expert pilots, military officers and children received their own companion spirits! Of course, Ves did not put too much effort into customizing and strengthening these companion spirits. Their initial capabilities were heavily correlated to the strength of their origins. To expert pilots such as Brutus and Venerable Joshua, their companion spirits started off on a much stronger footing than any other spirits of their kind! Brutus for example gained a black-and-white tuxedo cat that he decided to call Julius. The extraordinary willpower infused in Julius allowed the cat to pick up simple objects such as pens or buttons. This was just the start. The companion spirit had almost certainly grown stronger since then. Julius also gained greater mastery of the intrinsic ability that he derived from his origin, though Brutus still struggled to effectively make use of it when piloting his expert mech. In any case, many other expert pilots received similar boosts that directly affected their growth pattern and combat power! This caused them all to look forward to the impending expedition once more. They could only truly test out their gains in a serious battle against real opponents. They did not dare to go all-out in practice sessions. "Muw muw." Julius briefly appeared from Brutus' head. Alexandria subsequently appeared from Gloriana's head and started to nuzzle her 'older brother'. Sights like these became increasingly more common as companion spirits rapidly proliferated among the Larkinson Clan and the Glory Seekers! Ves initially thought about ordering the recipients of companion spirits to keep them out of sight entirely, but figured that there was little point in hiding them. The existence of companion spirits was no secret to the MTA. Since there was nothing shameful or overly taboo about companion spirits, Ves simply allowed everyone to air their companion spirits whenever they wanted. He only cautioned them to be careful about presenting them in front of strangers as the general public might not be able to accept their existence so easily. "Since you're about to finish your current batch of expert mech designs, when will you be able to upgrade my Star Dancer Mark II?" Brutus asked his sister. "I appreciate the minor upgrades that you have applied to it over the years, but from what you have told me about the power of quasi-first-class expert mechs that you are working on these days, I feel awfully underpowered. Julius alone cannot close the performance gap. Once our fleet enters the Torald Middle Zone and engages in battle against all manner of alien opponents, the Star Dancer Mark II won't be able to keep up anymore." Gloriana briefly furrowed her brows. "Your Star Dancer Mark II isn't the only expert mech that needs an upgrade. Ves has already told me that he wants to work on modernizing the Larkinson Clan's older expert mechs. That will all take a lot of time and effort, though once my husband helps me pay for my replacement cranial implant, I should be able to fulfill your wish much sooner than before. We won't be short on materials. I am sure about that. You will be in for a treat as my husband and I have recently made a lot of gains. Once we complete our current batch of mech designs, I am sure that we will be in a better position to upgrade your machine." "Don't forget about the needs of our other Glory Seeker expert pilots." Brutus reminded her. "Our Handmaidens of Death are good at offense. Their ability to lead battle formations make them especially useful in battles against large alien fleets. They are only constrained by their limited ability to resist warship-grade attacks." "You are correct. I will be sure to remind Ves when I next speak to him. He can't keep treating the Glory Seekers as his neglected cousin. You are his family as well!" As the two Wodins continued to chat with each other, Ves was speaking to another prominent member of the Larkinson Clan. "Rwoar!" A surprisingly large spiritual feline unleashed a roar that was powerful enough to shake the bones of nearby people. Many people recognized the glowing white lion as the companion spirit of General Ark Larkinson. Ves struggled with the decision whether he should grant this boon to his uncle. On the one hand, Ark was his father's brother. The two had been close back when they were humble citizens of the Bright Republic. Ark was also the Larkinson Clan's only high-tier expert pilot. He was the most likely among the Larkinsons to advance to the rank of ace pilot within this generation. No one else came close. On the other hand, General Ark clearly did not support the expeditions and the policy of maintaining a certain degree of separation from states. He was too much of an old-school Larkinson to let go of the traditional goals of climbing up the military ladder and earning enough merits in war to earn the right to rule over entire planets. Ark had become a thorny existence to Ves. The man's effective takeover of the Davute Branch had caused it to follow a completely different development strategy than before. Ves would be lying if he claimed that he still trusted Ark. Yet… the Larkinson Clan needed the gifted command-oriented expert pilot in the end. The Cross Clan had Patriarch Reginald Cross. The Adelaide Third Fleet had Saint Marissa Lewandowski. The Boojay Family had Saint Kalasandra Boojay. The Larkinson Clan still did not have an ace pilot as its protector. This made it increasingly more awkward for the Larkinsons to maintain their bargaining power and expand their power base in the coming years. The clan needed its own ace pilot sooner rather than later, and there was no one else Ves could turn to except for his 'dearest uncle'. It did not matter too much if Ark continued to be stubborn about committing to Davute. Just the fact that the Larkinson Clan gained its own ace pilot was enough to deter a lot of troublemakers from messing with the Larkinsons regardless of where they traveled! After all, few people wanted to provoke an angry ace pilot into descending onto their positions and wiping everything from existence in retaliation! Once Ves made the decision, he went all-out to the point of adding a few extra spiritual ingredients to augment his uncle's capabilities a bit further. Of all of the companion spirits that Ves had bestowed onto people in the past few months, none of them gained as much as his uncle Ark. It made sense. Ark Larkinson was a high-tier expert pilot that had reached the standard of an ace pilot candidate for a number of years. His resonance strength was much higher than that of Venerable Irene Mox when she received Emma! The additional ingredients that Ves blended into Ark's companion spirit only played a supplementary role at best. The ferocious white lion had already become good at leveraging Ark's intrinsic advantages! "Noah has grown a lot faster than I thought." Ves remarked as he evaluated the spiritual lion's roar. "How far can his roar reach when you pilot your expert mech?" "Not far enough." General Ark shook his head in disappointment. "I would like his empowered roar to encompass an entire battlefield in space if possible. My Travon Exine can only help so much no matter how much true resonance I exert. I suspect that if you design a new expert mech that is specifically designed to cooperate with Noah, my companion spirit can affect the hearts of hundreds of thousands of soldiers at once." Ves studied Noah a bit. What Ark just mentioned didn't sound so outlandish considering the circumstances. "Don't worry. You won't have to wait too long before I am ready to address your greatest need. I just need a bit of time to wrap up my current projects and handle a few different affairs that spring up after that. Once I am ready, I will deliver what you need within a year and most likely sooner. The only complication is that you'll need to come to the Torald Middle Zone in order to fetch your precious expert mech." "Mhmm. That should not be a major issue as long as the war hasn't already started. Davute and Karlach are still ramping up at this stage."