Chapter 5990 The First Ultimate Module Days went by. The mech workshop continued to remain immersed in shadow. Blinky never ceased to pump more shadow energy into the chamber. Despite the fact that a lot of the energy quickly passed through the walls and dissipated into the environment, the companion spirit did not take notice of all of this waste and continued to make sure that the workshop remained shrouded in shadow. Combined with the effort to convert other forms of E energy into life energy, the companion spirit single-handedly turned the mech workshop into a mystical work facility! It was as if Ves and all of the other mech designers had somehow teleported to a completely different time and place. By employing a novel variation of the Living Workshop ability, Blinky provided Ves with a much more supportive environment than before! Not only did Ves find it easier to imbue the archemetal parts with life, but the higher concentration of shadow energy also provided a more conducive environment to current endeavor. All in all, Ves started off strong from the beginning as his motivation remained high throughout the entire process. He had every reason to be excited about the novel set of circumstances of this upgrade run. Even though he could literally feel Tusa and Gloriana's growing frustrations towards him, he took their resentments in stride and continued to work with a lot of optimism towards the future! Although Ves eventually started to experience a bit of difficulty when he needed to fabricate more tricky archemetal parts, the challenges were not serious enough to force him to a halt. Gloriana had already assumed responsibility for fabricating all of the truly complicated archemetal components. That left Ves with all of the simpler and more trivial archemetal pieces. However, there was one notable exception to this arrangement. Ves insisted on fabricating all of the parts of the Dark Wind Module in person. He wanted to be responsible for constructing and assembling his first full Ultimate Model by hand whenever possible. The challenge was not insurmountable. The Dark Wind Module possessed a lot of remarkable properties, but its physical complexity was not too high. It essentially relied on a strong combination of hyper materials to bestow the Dark Zephyr with a powerful hyper ability. Ves invested a lot more time and effort into building up and optimizing the E-technology aspect of the Dark Wind Module. The hyper materials provided all of the energy and resources to produce a strong effect, but it was the advanced and elaborate spiritual programming that enabled the Dark Wind Module to produce powerful and focused effects. In other words, Ves had already completed the most difficult work in advance. The intricate work that Ves put into the Dark Wind Module's E-technology could easily be reproduced onto the actual module once it came into existence. However, that did not mean that fabricating the physical form of the Dark Wind Module would be easy. He had worked together with Gloriana to convert what was supposed to be a conventional physical module into a more compact and powerful archemetal counterpart. This made the Ultimate Module a lot smaller and easier to fit into the Dark Zephyr's cramped mech frame, but the tradeoff was that the difficulty of producing it had skyrocketed! Ves wisely chose to leave the fabrication of the Dark Wind Module for last. He cherished the opportunity to get as much practice as possible by fabricating a lot of other simple archemetal components. Much of it comprised of exterior armor plating and other parts with less sophisticated demands. There was enough work for Ves to keep him busy for multiple days. Despite the relative simplicity of the archemetal parts that he was responsible for making, Ves still had to struggle a lot in order to produce parts that were up to standard! It couldn't be helped. Ves only invested a fraction of the amount of time that his wife had spent on studying and mastering archetech. Not only did Gloriana absorb a lot more theory on this alien tech base, she also invested enough time on fabricating and experimenting with actual archemetal parts. All of that granted her much greater comprehension and fluency when he produced her own archemetal parts. The difference was so great that she made Ves feel like an immature kid in comparison! Ves did not feel upset about the gap between himself and his wife. They possessed completely different specializations. The greater their differences, the greater their synergy. The active design network served as a lifesaver for Ves. By borrowing Gloriana's much more advanced insights and comprehension of archetech without too much friction, he was able to perform a lot better than if he was working by himself. His wife actually offered wordless corrections and advice in the first few hours. Ves' grasp on archetech was so shallow that he had inadvertently made a few beginner's mistakes. He quickly corrected that after Gloriana spared enough attention on his work to scold him and tell him how he could do better over the design network! The fact that all of this happened through spiritual connections as opposed to verbal communication allowed the both of them to maintain their rhythm throughout their exchange. Ves quickly managed to gain enough proficiency to perform all of the basic processes without any further supervision from his wife. He had practiced these steps enough times in virtual reality. As long as he paid extra attention to the aspects that did not conform to reality and made targeted adjustments based on changing variables, he should be able to maintain a consistent level of output. It was only when he was getting closer to fabricating the Dark Wind Module that he began to grow more concerned. It was not particularly big, but its technical complexity still exceeded that of an exterior amor plate. One of his greatest concerns was trying to combine significant quantities of high-grade hypers and exotics without causing them all to conflict with each other and produce an explosion. This was a very real risk when attempting to produce high-quality miniaturized components. It was one of the many factors that drove up the production cost of such parts, especially if they couldn't be produced with materializers. In any case, Ves needed to work at a fairly brisk pace once he started to produce the Dark Wind Module. If he worked too slowly, then the incomplete module would stay out of balance and become susceptible to uncontrollable reactions. However, working too quickly might cause him to lose control over the fabrication process, thereby making it much more likely for him to ruin this critical module! His wife briefly looked up from her own work and pointedly gazed in his direction. He met her eyes and shook her head. "This is my work. It won't be the same if you are the one who makes it. Let me try." Though Ves felt intimidated by the difficulty of this challenge, he did not allow himself to shy away from it. The Dark Wind Module was his baby as far as he was concerned! Besides, if Tusa was willing to ingest a bit of phasewater, then why couldn't Ves produce an unprecedented archemetal part? Ves understood just enough theory and gained sufficient practice to handle a task like this. If he failed, then it wouldn't be because he was not equipped to do so, but because his mentality was too poor. In order to ensure that he developed the right mindset to success, he took a deep breath and pushed aside all of his doubts and fears. It was quite easy for him to do so. The Living Workshop ability made him feel at home. The fact that Tusa continued to endure the pain despite straining his willpower for such a long time gave Ves the impression that no limitations were absolute! "I can do this." He told himself. There was one more step he needed to take. He reached out to Vulcan. Before, Ves had been working without involving Vulcan too closely. His incarnation did not possess any better understanding of archetech than him. Ves had already internalized a lot of Vulcan's craftsmanship, so he did not see much point in drawing upon the spiritual entity's power. This was different. The Dark Wind Module was not a regular piece of archetech. Ves practically considered it to be an artifact. In order to ensure that he would be able to successfully produce it in his first attempt, Ves wanted to cooperate with Vulcan more directly in order to ensure that the resulting product met his standards. Once Vulcan's glow began to emanate from his body, Ves gained a much stronger focus and began to operate the archetech fabrication machine with a lot more intensity than before! Ves and Vulcan worked in near-perfect synchronicity as the Dark Wind Module gradually began to take shape. The full design of the Ultimate Module resembled a fairly compact metal cube. If no one knew what it was capable of, they would have mistaken it for an incomprehensible piece of archetech. However, the integration of high-quality materials and the exceptional implementation of E-technology elevated the Dark Wind Module into a trump card that could elevate the Dark Zephyr Mark III into a best-in-class expert mech! If Ves successfully created a version of the Dark Wind Module that matched his most optimistic estimates, then the new and improved Dark Zephyr would stand head and shoulders above any other Larkinson expert mech! The superiority of the Dark Zephyr in comparison to the Phobos, the Lionheart and the Blood Star Mark II would become so obvious that Ves gained all of the validation he needed to declare the arrival of the sixth generation of living mechs! With so much progress at stake, Ves continued to work together with his dwarven incarnation to maintain a steady and stable output. The two of them did not try to be too ambitious and attempt to exceed the parameters set by the design. The Dark Wind Module was already cutting-edge enough. There was no reason for them to take any further risks in this regard. Besides, the difficulty of controlling all of the additional variables and ensuring that nothing would go wrong already demanded their full attention! Darkness swirled around Ves with increasing intensity as the minutes went by. There were times where he almost slipped up, but he managed to recover in time. Gloriana provided timely help through the design network. She had gone back to supervising his work even when that caused her to shift her focus away from her own fabrication work. An hour went by. The Dark Wind Module had become a lot more complete at this point. Seeing that Ves already managed to fabricate the most finicky and sensitive aspects of the archemetal construct, he grew a bit relieved. Gloriana slowly started to draw back her attention as Ves and his incarnation proved that they sufficiently mastered the production process to finish the work by themselves. By the time the Dark Wind Module came close to completion, Ves brought out the key component that was designed to give it a powerful boost. He remotely retrieved the Fadestone from its decorative box. A small and delicate bot lifted up one of Tristan's latest hyper gems and carefully brought it to the archetech fabrication machine. Once the bot deposited the gem into a tray, the fabrication machine absorbed it and began to transfer it right inside one of its internal chambers. The gem approached the nearly complete Dark Wind Module and before it got slotted into place. Ves and Vulcan observed the projected control panels with baited breath before they felt a strong influx of shadow energy! The entire Dark Wind Module attracted 15 percent more shadow energy than before! The Fadestone somehow harmonized with Teraixe-063 and other compatible hyper materials used to construct the Dark Wind Module. The Ultimate Module had become more reliable than before. Though Ves could not prove it, he believed that the integration of Tristan's hyper gem made it significantly easier for the Dark Zephyr to fade into a shadow dimension than before! "Success!"