"Papa~" Auralia ran up to Ves, who subsequently lifted up his playful little girl. "Who's a good girl? Who has been a good girl today?" "Meeeee!" His first daughter giggled and insisted! The proud father showered his daughter with kisses and continued to cuddle with her for a while. Work eventually took priority though, so he reluctantly put her down and sent her off to the other kids who were playing with animated beast dolls. "Wooosh! Raawrr! My dragon is the strongest!" Marvaine exclaimed as he lifted up a cute and squishy cartoon dragon. The toy flapped its wings and released harmless vapor from its maw in a failed attempt to look ferocious. "Nuh uh, my phase whale is stronger!" Kirian Larkinson insisted! Joshua and Ketis' son threw up a baby blue whale toy in the air. The chubby and adorable phase whale proceeded to fly and flip around before ending back in its owner's hands. The girls were having a good time as well. They brought their own animated plushies and proceeded to hold a tea party for them at a little table. Mayra Larkinson, Kirian's younger sister, hosted the tea party and commanded her astral beast toy to grab the pot with its massive mouth and pour a bit of tea in everyone's tiny cup. "This is for you, this is for you and this is for you, hihi!" Meanwhile, Lucky was lying on the deck while groaning in pain. Weeks had gone by as the gem cat still hadn't been able to digest everything he had eaten during his trip to the surface of Pima Prime V. "Meooww… meooow… meoowww…" Though his pain had toned down to an extent, the cat's internals still needed to work overtime to process a huge amount of raw and refined materials! "Miaow~" Clixie laid by Lucky's side and kept watch over him while swishing her slender tail. The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat occasionally leaned forward to lick Lucky's face, but otherwise did nothing at all to help the mechanical cat cope with his ordeal. The surroundings briefly lit up as Goldie suddenly materialized above Lucky. The ancestral spirit curiously sniffed and poked her 'father', only to find out once again that she could do nothing to soften the pain. Nyaaaaaa. "Miaow!" Goldie soon became preoccupied with other matters as Clixie exerted her small but growing spirituality before pouncing on her 'daughter'! Soon, the two cats began to play and wrestle against each other while completely disregarding the suffering compatriot! Ves swept his glance across the entire compartment. The entire observation center seemingly turned into a daycare center today. Ketis originally wanted to conduct an initial test of the reformed plasma sword. She had worked long hours to undo certain additions, reduce the length of the blade, rework a lot of complicated electrical components and modify the shape of the grip to better accommodate the hands of the Everchanger. However, she hadn't been spending enough time with her kids as of late, so she decided to bring them along so that she could keep a closer eye on them. Ves happened to bring his own kids along, which gave them an opportunity to play with each other. "Are you excited today?" Ves asked the woman who was fiddling with a control panel. "I am." Ketis replied with a smile. "I made sure to preserve as much of the power of the Scarlet Ember while toning down its excessive energy consumption. I am certain that I have struck a good balance with the weapon. This test should make it clear that the Everchanger doesn't have to resort to an oversized mounted wargear loadout in order to slay other expert mechs." The swordmaster had registered a new name for the plasma sword, thereby marking it as a weapon of the Larkinson Clan as opposed to the Gauge Dynasty. It took a few more minutes for the focal point of this testing session to emerge in space. The Everchanger piloted by Venerable Joshua easily flew into space while wielding its rifle as well as its new high-tech sword in its hands. While the Larkinsons had no intentions of testing the Vitalus rifle today, the Everchanger still held it in one of its hands to see how well the expert mech was able to handle its weapon under realistic conditions. Ketis had paid great attention to trying to match the mass, dimensions and balance of the plasma sword as closely to the Heartsword as she could. Though she didn't always succeed in her aim, she had done just enough for Joshua to quickly adjust to the characteristics of his new weapon. Currently, the plasma sword was in its deactivated state, which meant that it currently looked like a dull metal rod. The weapon hardly exuded any threat in its inactive state. That soon changed as Venerable Joshua activated the sword. The Everchanger soon experienced an additional power draw as a dangerous red plasma edge appeared along the length of the metal rod. The Scarlet Ember was finally ready for business. "How is your mech doing, Joshua?" Ketis asked her husband over the communication channel. "The Everchanger is doing fine so far. It can handle the load. It's not much different from firing my luminar crystal rifle." "That is good to hear. Please keep in mind that the Scarlet Ember might demand more out of your expert mech over the course of this testing session." "I know, Ketis." "Let's start by putting you and your mech up against a series of practice targets." Dozens of target dummies appeared into space. Most practice targets were made out of salvaged remains of mechs, and this time was no different. The Larkinsons had specifically used up a lot of debris from the previous battle to create target dummies that featured comparable defensive properties to actual mechs. Of course, the mixed material composition of the dummies also caused them to look like trash. No one bothered to homogenize their exteriors or apply a coating to their surfaces because they were all destined to perish anyway. Venerable Joshua first tried to resonate with the Scarlet Ember, and found that it was a bit difficult for him to establish a good connection with the reformed plasma sword. "I can't resonate that well with my new weapon yet." He told the observing mech designers. "It's like having switched from a close partner to a complete stranger. What is worse is that the Scarlet Ember still feels like it originally belonged to another pilot. A part of it is still rejecting my presence." Ves did not look surprised after hearing this remark. "The Scarlet Ember used to be one of the three primary weapons of the Neo Amadeus. It has spent months if not years in the company of an ace pilot. Saint Jeremiah Gauge has baptized it with his incredible willpower for an unknown amount of time. While his influence on the weapon has definitely improved all of its properties and most notably its hardness, it has also made the weapon more exclusionary towards other high-ranking mech pilots." "I can definitely feel that from this weapon." Joshua said. "I'm trying my best to get along with it, but it's like I'm trying to befriend a Fridayman who's fellow soldiers I've just slaughtered. It is actively resisting my efforts to resonate with it. The only reason why I am able to produce a result at all is because I'm stronger, but the longer I do this, the sooner I'll exhaust my willpower." Ves and Ketis shared a brief glance. They already accounted for this possibility. They also knew that it would have been worse if the plasma sword was still in its original form. The presence of the head of the expert pilot alone would have produced an intense backlash if Joshua forcefully resonated with the twisted 'living weapon'! This was also why Ketis insisted on removing this troublesome element from the start. It was a necessary condition to allow an enemy of the Gauge Dynasty to make use of the plasma sword. "I'm sure you can find a way to get along with your new sword." Ves spoke without concern. "For now, we just want to record the baseline data of the Scarlet Ember. It doesn't matter too much if you can't channel a lot of true resonance into the weapon. Its technological capabilities more than make up for this temporary shortcoming." "I think you are vastly overestimating my ability to get along with others! This sword hates my guts!" The Everchanger quickly approached the nearest dummies and slashed at it with the plasma sword. Nothing much seemed to have happened, but that was what made the power of the weapon so incredible. The Scarlet Ember managed to burn and melt through all of the solid metal without too much hindrance in a single swing! The Everchanger didn't even have to exert that much mechanical power to run the blade through the practice dummy! "Excellent! Let's repeat that a few more times, Joshua. Make sure to employ different sword attacks at each target dummy." The Everchanger proceeded to demolish a dozen more dummies with ease. Each of them were made out of broken pieces of armor plating and other parts taken from hardy mechs like the Modal Firmament or the Favored Sons. While the First Sword should have been able to cut through regular mechs with similar ease, the Everchanger would have struggled to sustain this pace due to its weaker strength. All of that no longer applied now that the Scarlet Ember came into the picture. "Okay, that's enough. Let's see how well your new weapon is able to handle a more serious weapon. We have invited the perfect practice partner to see how well you can leverage its power against an expert mech." Much to Joshua's surprise, a powerful machine emerged from the Cross Clan's fleet and quickly blazed its way to the testing area! Soon enough, it arrived in front of the Everchanger. The powerful Saint Kingdom surrounding the ace mech had already begun to suppress Joshua's weaker force of will! "That's not an expert mech!" "Oh. I forget. Let me rein myself in." Patriarch Reginald spoke. The Mars soon became a lot less intimidating as Reginald did his best to reduce his resonance with the ace mech. This was a difficult task considering that the two shared a close and permanent connection with each other. In the end, the Mars maintained a state where the next test could finally proceed. "Hit me all you want." Reginald plainly told Joshua. "My Mars can take it all. It is one thing if Jeremiah Gauge was using that sword of yours, but now that it has ended up in your hands, I don't feel any threat anymore." Though his words were harsh, they still rang true. That didn't stop Joshua from getting a little angry. "Are you sure about that, sir? Your Mars is still not in a healthy shape." The Cross Clan had performed a lot of emergency repairs on the ace mech, allowing it to restore a lot more battle effectiveness. However, it was clear that the Mars still needed to undergo more extensive repairs to bring it back to its peak condition. "Don't worry about it, Joshua. My Mars can still rush your puny machine in its current state. Just hit me already!" "If you say so, sir! Don't complain if you can't take my attacks!" His expert mech boldly approached the Mars while swinging the Scarler Ember! The shrunken but much more concentrated domain field of the Mars easily resisted the attack, but the release of so much heat and light indicated that the blow could have dealt serious damage to a weaker target! "Hahaha! That's the spirit!" Patriarch Reginald reacted with a bit of excitement. "Your Everchanger looks like a baby version of the Neo Amadeus right now. You hit harder than all of the other expert mechs in our fleet aside from the Amaranto." That was a genuine compliment even if it did not sound so flattering to Joshua. "How would you rate the damage of the previous attack, Reginald?" Ves asked. "The Everchanger probably needs to attack a few more times before the resonance shield of a low-tier expert mech can't take it anymore. A mid-tier expert mech can probably resist eight to twelve attacks of this kind before it loses its resonance shield as well. I think that it can go through their armor a lot easier." That was an excellent result! The raw power of the ace mech-grade weapon was still formidable. Even an ordinary mech could threaten an expert mech with its hot blade as long as it was able to supply enough energy!