A needle poked his arm. At least, it attempted to. It met with an unreasonable amount of resistance, so much so that it had to exert lethal force before it ceased its attempt in order to prevent any possible accidents. "You know what? I give up." Director Ranya Wodin exasperatingly said as she waved away the bots that had been trying and failing to take tissue samples. "Do you believe me, now?" Ves innocently asked as he sat up from the examination table. He felt awfully annoyed at being forced to wear a thin medical garment that completely failed to hide the innate charm of his newly evolved body. Director Ranya did not even hide her fascination for his radical changes. No matter how much he employed his innate camouflage ability to hide how special he had become, it was primarily effective at hiding his insides from intrusive scans. It did little to obscure the changes to his outward appearance. It also wasn't entirely effective at suppressing his glow, which was a thing now that he had acquired some of the traits of a spiritual entity. "You at least know that I'm still me, right?" Ves asked. "I'm not a clone that the MTA had secretly cultivated and swapped with my original body through a secret teleportation process." Ranya smirked. "I don't have any doubts about that. Clones are always flawed and we do not believe the MTA has managed to overcome their flaws. The longer a clone talks and interacts with the people you know, the more inconsistencies it will expose. While we have definitely noticed lots of changes from you, they can mainly be ascribed to your… inexplicable evolution. What I mean to say is that a covert replacement clone would try a lot harder to blend in rather than stand out. You must be the worst clone that I have ever met for exposing so many physical and mental differences from your old self." "Well, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway when the Golden Cat and the other spirits that we are familiar with have already vouched for me." Ves casually said as he moved over to the changing room in order to exchange his outfit for a proper uniform. "Ugh. Our understanding of these 'spirits' that you consort with is too inadequate." Ranya complained. "It would have been better if you taught us more details of what you know about this subject." Ves sighed. "Now is not the time. There is way too much stuff going on for me to give you a lesson. Besides, much of the research centered around spirituality takes place in the T Institute for a reason. The people who work over there are at least somewhat capable of working with spiritual energy. The same can't be said for your researchers. You guys simply lack the expertise." "Then teach us, sir!" He paused for a moment. "I am going to need your help on a lot of future biotechnology-related projects. I have become a lot more interested in adding biomechs to our lineup after seeing the power of that big whale. If your LBI can accommodate my new ambitions, I can teach you more about spiritual energy than what limited information that I have disclosed to you in exchange." "That is excellent news, sir." "We can talk about this later. I'm more interested in the whale carcass. Did we get the good stuff?" "That depends on your definition of 'good stuff'." Ranya replied in her professional tone. "We are making good use of our allowances. We have secured portions of the brain and harvested several whole phase whale organs. Making use of them is another question. Phase whale tissue is different from fish-whale tissue. Fish-whales are simplified versions of phase whales. The latter is much more valuable but also much more difficult to shape to our advantage. Our researchers will need to spend years on studying the intricacies of phase whale biology because it is so intertwined with phasewater." Ves nodded in understanding. Any organism that contained phasewater was pretty much a demigod or god in native terms, so it was not surprising that it would be difficult to make use of phase whale remains. It was worth the effort. The MTA wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about capturing and dissecting phase whales. The high bounties they promised for any phase whale specimens was a clear sign that the mechers had also grown interested in the extraordinary power of this powerful race! Compared to the MTA, Ves didn't think the Larkinson Biotech Institute could gain as much benefit out of the tissue samples. The biotech researchers working for the Larkinson Clan simply didn't have as much expertise and resources at their disposal. That didn't mean that Ves was ready to suspend these research efforts. He possessed a lot of expertise in spiritual engineering and he had recently acquired an affinity for phasewater. He could give his research teams a powerful push in the right direction if he leveraged both of these advantages. As Ves changed his uniform and wore most of his equipment again, he stepped out of the changing room and looked around for his Unending Regalia. "Where's my combat armor?" "We took it back to your grand stateroom. We requested your wife to look over your combat armor just to make sure it is the same one that you have made use of all the time. We can never be too careful, sir." Ves already expected his clansmen to check up on his Unending Regalia, but he didn't expect them to hand it over to his wife! "It will be in good hands." He replied. Although his Unending Regalia was capable of recording logs, he had made sure to disable that function and wipe out any possible incriminating data before he returned to realspace. He was not afraid that Gloriana would find any compromising materials in his suit of combat armor. At most, she would probably become annoyed at how his combat armor had suddenly become incomplete and a lot less perfect than before. Ves and Ranya continued to talk about how to handle and make use of the harvested phase whale flesh. There was so much R&D value to them that securing these spoils alone already paid off this mission as far as he was concerned! He smirked for a moment. What no one realized except for him was that he had also harvested an even greater ingredient from the unclean whale. Though his cyborg cat was still away from him, the divine artifact successfully retrieved the unclean whale's rebellious spirit. Containing it for a longer period of time was a massive problem, but for now his new pet was keeping it firmly contained. The cyborg cat even managed to hitch a ride back to the Larkinson Clan's fleet. Ves just had to make an odd request for the Everchanger to fly up to the carcass and pretend to do something while the cyborg cat sneakily jumped over. Ves actually felt tempted not to retrieve his divine artifact. One of the greatest advantages of his latest incarnation was that it didn't have to stay close to him. Unlike Blinky that could only go so far until hitting a range limit, his cyborg cat could go anywhere and Ves would still be able to maintain an active connection. The reason for this was because the divine artifact contained a portion of his Divine Core which was the more important essential part of himself. He wasn't really sure what it actually represented, but he roughly understood what he could do now that it was split off from the larger whole. His cyborg cat didn't have to travel in the same fleet as him. He could send it out to a completely different location and have it serve as a backup for his own life. If his fleet ever ran out of luck and got wiped out one day, most of his clansmen would probably die without a doubt. Not Ves. He knew that as long as his cyborg cat remained alive and far away from the battlefield, he could always make a comeback somehow. Of course, he didn't have to restore his original self. He could choose to stick to living like a cat and mooch off other people. It was quite nice to… not carry around so many burdens anymore and use his second chance at life to relax and stop worrying about complicated human affairs. However, if Ves still retained the heart of a mech designer, then he wouldn't be happy with living like a cat. There had to be some way of restoring his human body and perhaps the rest of himself. The journey might be long and arduous, but it should definitely be possible to climb back up again. He even theorized that his mother may be going through the same journey. It would explain a lot, actually. He knew that his mother possessed a special identity that was tied to the Five Scrolls Compact. For some reason, she left all of that behind and became the wife of a rather ordinary mech pilot hailing from a small and forgettable third-rate state. Ves couldn't imagine how a spiritual sorceress that used to wield so much power and knowledge could possibly be happy with living such an ordinary and unremarkable life. His mother's decisions made a lot more sense if Cynthia Larkinson wasn't her main personality, but rather her incarnation. An incarnation that was meant to serve as a lifeline for a spiritual sorceress on the run. Ves felt mixed when he entertained a number of unsettling possibilities. With the knowledge that he possessed today, he was pretty sure that much of his mother had 'died' already. The only part of her that was left was probably an incomplete shard of her Divine Core. While she had successfully managed to cling to life, she would never be complete as long as her Divine Core had yet to restore. This explained why she couldn't raise Ves throughout his entire childhood. It also explained why she needed to harvest spiritual energy from Ves and other people. He silently sighed. From what he knew, it took a long time and a lot of resources to restore a heavily damaged Divine Core. Just preventing whatever remained from falling apart already took a great amount of effort! Ves understood a lot better how much it had cost for his mother to turn the Superior Mother into her incarnation. Cynthia had to split off a piece of her already damaged remnant of her Divine Core to ensure that the Superior Mother remained bound to herself. He could even guess that since Cynthia only split off the tiniest fraction that she could get away with, the connection between herself and the Superior Mother wasn't strong. It wouldn't be like the strong and vigorous bond between Ves and his cyborg cat. The two remained constantly connected to the point where Ves could experience what his living divine artifact was going through at any time. The connection between Cynthia and the Superior Mother should be inactive most of the time. It took too much effort from the former to activate her connection with the latter. He sighed. He truly wanted to help out her mother and try to fix all of her problems. He was getting closer to doing so but he was still too far away from reaching her level. "Sir." Ranya spoke up after a period of silence. "The first transports carrying the harvested tissue samples of the unclean whale have just docked with the Dragon's Den. The biomatter is already being brought to our storage chambers. Would you like to come and inspect the bounty?" Ves grinned. "Heck, yes! This is our greatest trophy from this battle as far as I am concerned!" He wanted to touch and take a look at that phase whale meat himself. That way, he could make direct and more intuitive comparisons between himself and the unclean whale. How much did their bodies resemble each other?