Ves enjoyed the process of working on the Thunderer Mark II. He had recently gained a lot of proficiency in phasewater technology, but all of it essentially remained theoretical. It was difficult to appreciate the full benefits of his recent sublimation when all of his new and promising phasewater applications were still locked inside his head. To be able to work with his hands to apply some of those brilliant ideas to an actual machine was incredibly gratifying. He not only grasped the mechanisms that made the cannons so powerful to a greater degree, but was also able to put his mark on a machine that would most certainly achieve great feats in the future! Part of the reason why mech designers were so passionate about their jobs was the opportunity to affect the lives of people and the course of human history. Each of them had the capacity to shake human civilization and alter the trajectories of countless humans. The scope of their influence was only limited by how good they were and how easily they could convince others to use their work. Ves knew that once the Thunderer Mark II began to show off its enhanced prowess in a future major engagement, a lot of people would begin to explore why the ace mech displayed such fantastic penetration power. While there was an incredible variety of ace mechs out there that exhibited varying degrees of effectiveness, the anticipated performance boost of the Thunderer Mark II would definitely exceed everyone's estimates! Without any obvious material upgrades of the physical design of the ace heavy artillery mech, the most observant people would soon be able to figure out that more unusual changes were responsible for the performance improvements. Those who were clever and resourceful enough would correctly attribute the changes to Ves. This was both a desirable and undesirable development. On one hand, Ves disliked attracting too much attention from powerful parties. On the other hand, he needed their phasewater and their other offerings to accelerate his growth and the growth of the Larkinson Clan. One way or another, Ves did not intend to limit this service to the pioneering groups gathered in this star system. He needed to milk his unique capacity for as long as humanity's utilization of phasewater technology was still in its infancy. Once human scientists and engineers finally caught up to the level of the indigenous alien civilizations, the relative improvement provided by blessed weapons would no longer be as dramatic as today. This was because the Phase King's incredible understanding of phasewater would no longer be as superior as before. All of this meant that Ves only had a limited window of opportunity to milk the Phase King's temporary head start as much as possible! As Ves continued to change the heavy cannons one by one, he also started to make more general modifications to the ace mech. He mainly focused on tweaking the program and furthering the spiritual design of the machine. He was especially interested in turning the Thunderer Mark II into a slightly better living mech. His initial work already laid the groundwork, but that was not sufficient by his standards. Although he didn't have the time and permission to turn the Thunderer Mark II into a proper second order living mech, he at least straightened out the machine so that it had the potential to grow into one in the future. This was a service that went beyond the parameters of the trade agreement between the Larkinson Clan and the Santana Group. Ves didn't have to make this additional improvement given how little the Santanas were willing to spend, but his professionalism and his pride as mech designer prevented him from ignoring this issue. "Oh well. I am a generous mech designer, I guess." He said with a sigh. Every mech deserved the opportunity to enjoy a proper life. This should especially be the case for ace mechs that accompanied their users for a long time. While Ves had no idea whether living ace mechs would be a boon or a detriment to the future advancement of their ace pilots, he was confident that it would help under the right conditions. He did not dare to make any predictions on whether Saint Jelmer Osenring would be able to make the jump to god pilot in the future. The difficulty was simply too great. Far more ace pilots had tried and failed to survive the mysterious Mech Body Merger Process. He wished Saint Osenring the best of luck. No matter how far his journey brought him, Ves hoped that the ace pilot was able to make it a little further with this additional help. Before he finalized his work, he wanted to make one last change that was not entirely appropriate. This was one of the few instances of selfishness that he wanted to indulge in this commission. Technically speaking, it was not proper for him to add a second and largely redundant design spirit to the Thunderer Mark II. The Phase King already provided the ace heavy artillery mech with all of the power and assistance it needed. Adding a second external influence would muddle up the purity of the machine. Yet… as long as Ves was able to justify this addition by rationalizing a solid benefit to the Thunderer Mark II, he might be able to get away with this little change. He eventually convinced himself that even if he wasn't able to do much at this time, he would definitely grow powerful enough to add a lot of value to this ace mech! With that thought in mind, he formed a minor connection between himself and the Thunderer Mark II. The powerful heavy artillery mech was the first mech with Ves as a design spirit! Ves could already tell the difference. He was not entirely new to this phenomena as Vulcan was also tied to a lot of products. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶 Yet… it was different now that Ves himself acted as the design spirit. He found that his ability to connect and influence the Thunderer Mark II was not that impressive. There wasn't enough time to explore much further. He could figure this all out later, assuming that Saint Osenring's strong willpower did not erase this additional change. "I'm done." Ves announced as he completed his work. It took quite a few hours, but the Thunderer Mark II had become a lot more effective in battle, even though it didn't look any different on the surface. The user of the ace mech knew better, fortunately. Saint Osenring gazed at his machine with much greater appreciation than before. "I do not know what you have done to make it stronger, but it is as if my machine has gone through a second metamorphosis. I can already tell that the performance of my mech will be significantly better than before." Ves bowed in thanks. "Thank you for your vote of confidence. You have supported my work at multiple turns. I promise you that your confidence in me will not go unrewarded. Enjoy your improved ace mech. If you have encountered any technical issues that your resident experts can't solve, feel free to contact me. I am open for further consultation." "I do not think that will be necessary. Goodbye, Patriarch Larkinson. I will make good use of the improvements that you have made to my machine." That was that. Ves took one final look at the ace mech that he had the privilege to work upon before turning away and making his way out of the workshop. His mind became preoccupied with all of the intricate design solutions that he had glimpsed. The Thunderer Mark II's exquisite design had provided him with a wealth of insight that he could use to improve his own heavy artillery mechs. Not only that, but Ves also harvested a wealth of insights on how to design stronger and better gauss weapons, particularly transphasic ones. All of this provided him with a fantastic boost to any projects related to designing kinetic ranged mechs. If not for the fact that the Design Department's project pipeline was already full, Ves would have proposed to start an upgrade project centered around designing the latest addition to the Transcendent Punisher line. The Mark II version that recently came out was not weak by any means, but its lack of transphasic weapons of any kind was a major shortcoming that was reflective of the poorer state of the clan in the past. The current edition of the Transcendent Punisher also put a lot of emphasis on energy weapons of the heavy artillery mech. Ves had successfully added a powerful pair of luminar crystal cannons to the frame that provided a lot of extra power and versatility. Compared to the radical transformation of the energy weapons of the heavy artillery mech, its physical armaments had not been able to improve as much. He previously looked down on the gauss cannons of the Transcendent Punisher, but after learning how the more advanced guns were able to bestow a lot more power to them, he regained his appreciation for this relatively humble weapon system! He really wanted to work on a design project where he could apply all of the new ideas, but alas that was not in the cards. "Later then." Ves promised to himself. Once he returned to his flagship, the expeditionary fleet was finally ready to move on. There was nothing much holding the Golden Skull Alliance back anymore, so the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers might as well go on their way and leave the others to continue their salvaging work. The Golden Skull Alliance wasn't departing alone. The Third Fleet of the Adelaide Mercenary Company also decided to depart at the same time. Since they both wanted to get away from this place, they had decided to take the same route so that they could rely on each other for backup if they ever bumped into an enemy. The two fleets wouldn't be traveling alongside each other for long, but it should be enough to give them a bit of extra assurance in case an angry phase whale who was responsible for the Palace of Shame somehow caught up to the culprits. As the two fleets slowly left the asteroid belt and made their way to a safe Lagrange point that would not bring them too close to one of the powerful neutron stars in the center of the star system, Ves prepared to resume his long-stalled design projects. He was no longer the same mech designer that had previously worked on them. He had acquired so many new insights, competences and talents that he felt ashamed when he reviewed his prior work on his incomplete design projects! After he reviewed all of the plans he made for the Dullahan Project, the Ghost Project, the Eye Project and the Bloodripper Project, he eventually shook his head in disappointment. "Outdated trash!" He subsequently deleted the electronic documents and began to write revised plans that were considerably more ambitious than before. He put an especially great emphasis on the Dullahan Project because he wanted to implement a radical new addition to Jannzi's successor mech. "A powerful expert mech like this will benefit more from blood circulation than many other mechs." Ves determined. "It's not necessary to turn it into a proper cyborg mech, but I can at least add a few organic elements to it so that it can forge a Blood Pact with Venerable Jannzi!" Ves treated the Blood Knight design that he had completed during his stint in the System Space as a short practice run for the Dullahan Project. All he needed to do was to transplant some of the principles that defined the Blood Knight to the Dullahan Project. There were two major challenges to this altered plan. First, Ves had to design an organic blood circulation system within the Dullahan Project without getting in the way of its mechanical internal architecture. Second, he had to persuade Venerable Jannzi to embrace the addition of numerous bioparts to her successor mech! "This is going to be difficult." He concluded.