Ves left as a man, and returned as a demigod. …Well, as a manner of speaking. He did not believe in the notion of gods in the first place. The only reason why he would possibly attach the label of 'demigod' to himself was because it was the word that best described the native concept to his current state. What was important was that Ves gained more power than he could ever imagine! The sequence of events that led to the creation of his divine artifact infused him with strength through unknown means but miraculous means. Different high-grade energies from vast and immensely powerful sources merged into his entire being. Though Vulcan had sadly been left out as he was an external incarnation that remained frozen in time during the entire ordeal, Ves, Blinky and the new cyborg cat became powerhouses in their own right! The cyborg cat that Ves hadn't even gotten around to naming yet was the most powerful part of Ves. It had exceeded the strength level of its principal due to how well it was able to progress in this manner. The fundamental purpose of a divine artifact was to assist Ves into ascending to godhood by clearing the way ahead! Though its form still resembled its original design, massive influences had elevated its quality, design and material composition to a ridiculous degree! There was no better way to quantify how much progress it had made to becoming an existence akin to a True God than to measure its phasewater blood concentration. With 6.9 percent of its blood volume comprising of pure and potent phasewater, the cyborg cat had become a powerhouse in ways that still needed to be explored! In comparison to his amazing divine artifact, Ves himself only received a fraction of the benefits of the dangerous ritual that he had just concluded. With the knowledge and experience that he possessed at this time, he recognized with greater clarity how reckless and foolish he had been to undergo a messed up ascension ritual at his level of strength. It was as if the Quint attempted to defeat an expert mech like the Everchanger in a mech duel! There was no way a standard mech could defeat an expert mech under any reasonable circumstance. The Quint would just break after suffering just one or two casual attacks from the Everchanger because the latter was just that strong! Yet… Ves could still come up with scenarios where the Quint could prevail in single combat. One of them was through the use of powerful external equipment such as the Instrument of Doom that had been able to punch through the defenses of formidable alien warships. Though it was still unlikely for the Quint to prevail, it at least had the power to punch through the Everchanger's defenses! Its mech pilot just had to be able to resonate with the Phase King and aim the weapon precisely enough to strike a fast-moving expert mech, neither of which was as easy as it sounded. Ves grew nervous as his circumstances were just as difficult. He was as weak as a Quint in the face of the power of an expert pilot. His main reliances were his divine artifact, which acted as an external power focus, and the Mech Designer System, which made it easier for him to pass the various checkpoints. Somehow, those conveniences were enough for him to make a leap that countless alien individuals in the Red Ocean had dreamed about! He honestly did not know how he measured up in the strength hierarchy of the mech community at the moment. He was still a Journeyman. That hadn't changed. Even though his design seed had definitely changed in an immeasurable way by absorbing a portion of the high-grade energies, it hadn't fundamentally changed in state. The only way to become a better mech designer was to design mechs and come up with more ingenious ways to make them better. No amount of raw combat power could help him advance to Senior, Master or Star Designer in a single leap. Yet… Ves had an incredibly strong hunch that his path to reaching the pinnacle of mech design had become a lot smoother than before. Just like how first-raters enjoyed all kinds of helpful conveniences such as better implants, excellent schooling and access to fantastic resources, Ves had also improved his own background through the messy ritual. The best way that he could describe it was that while his software remained unchanged, his hardware received a massive boost! It was like transitioning from using a 3D printer to using a superfab. The latter was faster, more precise, more capable of handling difficult materials and more able to produce difficult components! This made it a lot faster and easier to produce better and more powerful mechs! The same went for Ves after he had undergone so many changes. The comprehensive transformation of his Spirituality, the upgrades to his main cognitive functions, the physical upgrades to his main brain along with the creation of a brand-new secondary backup brain which he had buried deep inside his 'CyLeg' completely upgraded his thinking processes to a degree that he could only dream about before his latest transformation! He still had to explore how all of the upgrades to his 'hardware' affected his productivity in mech design. His conservative estimate was that if he previously had to spend a year to complete the Dullahan Project, he could probably get it done in half that time. In fact, he could have probably completed it sooner if he didn't have to wait for collaborators such as Gloriana and Sara Voiken to complete their own contributions to the expert mech design project! Aside from being able to design mechs at greater speeds, his ability to learn and comprehend brand-new theories must have skyrocketed as well! Ves especially looked forward to immersing himself in Phasewater Theory. He just knew with every fiber of his being that phasewater was no longer as abstruse and foreign to him as before. Even if the earlier trials and tribulations only converted 0.01 percent of his total blood volume into phasewater, what it actually represented was that he managed to get his foot into the door! His affinity to phasewater had definitely grown. His mentality towards this substance had changed. His intuition was able to grasp it to a much greater degree than before. He even developed a completely new sense that allowed him to sense both phasewater and spacetime manifestations within his range. With all of these advantages, Ves was in a much better position to design mechs and transphasic mechs in particular than ever before! Of course, that was the least of his priorities at the moment. He couldn't go back to his greatest passion and complete his design projects with greater fervor and ability than ever before if he couldn't do anything against the unclean whale that was threatening his entire expeditionary fleet and more! As Ves descended back to reality, his perception of what was happening had slowed to a crawl. This was one of the many handy new features that he had managed to obtain from his transformation into a half-native demigod. Currently, his two brains had entered into something of a mental overdrive mode. His upgraded neurons and gray matter were working several times harder than before, burning more calories and generating heat like nothing else! Ves could sense that his brains couldn't endure the strain too long. They were too fresh and too new. They still needed to settle down and consolidate their new states. However, Ves did not need to spend so much time to get up to speed with the current situation. First, he could confirm that his perception of the passage of time had truly slowed to a crawl. His upgraded eyes could peer through the transparent face plates of his bridge officers and catch them in the middle of blinking their eyes. Ves could perceive the slow and gradual motion of moving their eyelids with excellent clarity. It was akin to a slow motion effect. When he tried to move his body, he could feel that he was subjected to the same effect, though not to the same degree as others. The comprehensive enhancements of his body and mind had significantly boosted his reaction speed and his movement speed. The former allowed him to pass on commands to his body a lot faster than before. The latter enabled him to actually move his body with greater speed and force! This was why he was able to move at the speed of a geriatric turtle while everyone else was moving a lot slower. He could already see that his two daughters had only just begun to notice that their father had changed in a radical and profound way. One of the changes that Ves had tried to implement on himself was a way to camouflage his extraordinary nature. It was difficult for him to manipulate the creation energy produced by the lightning strikes to perform the necessary upgrades. He was most afraid of getting exposed by advanced, high-powered sensor and scanning systems, so he mostly focused on impeding technological detection methods. It had been enough to fool the Unending Regalia's sensors, and he figured that not even the MTA might be able to detect the minute amount of phasewater running through his veins. The solution to disguise his body as that of a baseline human was a little crude. It would be obvious to the MTA and many other parties that Ves deliberately hid the true state of his body considering that it used to be a lot more alien and abnormal in the past. Ves didn't mind too much, though. He only wanted to avoid drawing attention whenever he passed through a security checkpoint whenever he visited a new destination. It would be annoying if the scanning devices picked up a void in the space where he was standing! The point was that while he was confident in his ability to evade electronic detection methods, he was less certain that he was able to hide his extraordinary nature. The changes to his Spirituality were even more dramatic. Just like expert pilots, an invisible part of Ves had grown too powerful for people to ignore. Hiding his true nature as a demigod was an exercise in futility. Just like how all of his design spirits openly radiated their own presence and domains in the form of glows that ordinary people could perceive, Ves had gained his own glow! He immediately attributed this change to the galactic energy bestowed by the Milky Way. It had primarily fused with his Spirituality, strengthening it and changing it to a form that resembled that of other familiar entities such as Qilanxo and the Superior Mother. In other words, he had become a lot more similar to his sister Helena than before! The family resemblance was much more convincing! While Ves still had to explore the full implications and additions of this dramatic change, for now Ves could immediately tell that everyone on the bridge had come under the open influence of his glow. That was bad. The abrupt appearance of a brand new glow had interrupted the work of his bridge officers and evoked considerable surprise and vigilance from his honor guard. Meanwhile, his two daughters had sensed his changes much more clearly than anyone else in the vicinity! They would have started to panic if not for the fact that they were incredibly familiar with his spiritual signature, but as it was Ves did not have the time to explain his dramatic transformation. Time was of the essence! The unclean whale that was in the middle of weaving the fabric of spacetime in the distance had to be stopped before he could address people's doubts! He sent a brief glance of apology to his two children before he returned his gaze towards the cyborg cat in his arms. His new divine artifact was saturated with so much Worclaw energy that it would probably explode if it didn't find a way to vent all of its excess power! "Goooooo!" The cat only needed an instant to lock onto its target. The unclean whale's presence was unmistakable and was also the source of all of the surrounding spatial fluctuations. The silver-plated cat released a blindingly bright flash of light before his body propelled forward at a blazing speed while phasing through the entire hull of the Spirit of Bentheim at an astounding speed! Ves had launched his payload!