Chapter 7116: A Miracle of Human Engineering As Marigold Larkinson made her debut to the guests and the wider public, Ves inwardly sighed in relief. The ritual was actually a bit riskier than he portrayed. It had to be in order to fulfill several objectives at once. Not even Ves knew what the ritual was fully capable of. Only the collies under the leadership of the Farseer understood the qi formation from top to bottom. The RC’s impressive formation masters had joined forces with its resident ritualists to turn the entire Microplanet into a giant ritual. It was not easy for the two groups to work together. This had to do with their approach towards E energy manipulation. Formation masters were akin to physicists and mathematicians that tried to calculate precise solutions on how to exploit predictable and consistent E energy characteristics to produce specific outcomes. Their qi formations were remarkably stable and consistent, but they were also finicky and demanding. It took a long time to develop them, and it was also troublesome to deploy them at different locations. Ritualists were completely opposite in this regard. Most of them were not educated in science or engineering because this kind of knowledge interfered with their ability to view the universe in idealistic terms. Those who chose this extraordinary profession often had a religious background. They were men and women of faith who believed that the power of prayer and belief could do anything. While they were too weak and inexperienced to come close to omnipotence, they still managed to cobble together vague methodologies that enabled them to conduct elaborate rituals that produced a desired effect... most of the time. Their lack of scientific rigor and inability to standardize their own rituals made their output inconsistent. Repeating the same ritual under the same circumstances could lead to wildly different results due to random chance or changes to one of many different variables. Despite these disadvantages, ritualists still managed to earn a place within the Red Collective. The threshold to become a ritualist was not as great as that of a formation master. It was easier to train them in large numbers. Since many of them possessed unique and unconventional perspectives, it was easy to promote the ones that managed to become more successful while encouraging the failures to transfer to a different specialization. Over a short period of time, the RC managed to raise a cadre of ritualists whose self-made delusions somehow worked quite well more often than not, though nobody could explain why. What was important was that the ritualists might be a lot sloppier in their work than formation masters, but could often produce results that were otherwise unattainable through pure calculations. This was the power of idealistic thinking. Aside from high-ranking mech pilots, ritualists were the only cultivators that weaponized their imagination to the fullest. It was a tall order to ask formation masters to work together with ritualists to transform the Microplanet into a gigantic multipurpose qi formation, yet the Red Collective somehow managed to make it work. The collies went above and beyond in order to impress the founder and the chief upper councilor of their superorganization. Aurelia’s birthday party served as an excellent venue for the collies to prove their rapid progress in cultivation science in the relatively short time they managed to establish themselves. Far too many people still considered the Red Collective to be a weak organization that was only at the start of its lengthy maturation cycle. Their impressions were not wrong, but they underestimated how quickly the collies managed to convert forgotten and obscure scriptures into real power. The successful conclusion of the grand spell array successfully impressed their audience! Even though the cost of constructing the crystal pyramid and other formation anchors was massive, the gains were more than satisfactory as many distinguished guests quietly raised their evaluation of the Red Collective. The more perceptive among them sensed that the massive qi formation did far more than power up the mysterious artifact. The light and purifying energies generated by the active spell array had swept through all of the guests, purifying and cleansing them in ways that they could not explain. It was very hard to measure any differences between their past selves and current selves, but many of them felt they had benefited in one way or another. Their stress had eased. They withstood the pressure of the responsibilities a little better. They had greater hope for the future of red humanity than before. The differences sounded minor, but they could make a huge difference in the coming weeks and months! Without enough hope, how could red humanity ever survive when being hammered by two powerful alien civilizations at once? Aside from pepping up the guests, the qi formation also had other functions, though Ves had not been informed about the specific effects. From what he managed to observe, at least one of the desired effects was to identify those who would rather work with the enemies of red humanity than to serve their own race. Ves did not believe that any traitor could make it past all of the background checks and rigorous inspections, but exceptions always existed. Who knew whether prominent leaders with stellar reputations had already sold out their own race? The Cosmopolitan Movement had largely been repelled from most of the large organizations that had erected their own kinship networks, but that did not mean they had disappeared from human society. There were still many common folk who did not belong to any of the big star nations or superorganizations. These people might not be highly placed, but they were still able to monitor a lot of important activities such as industrial output and technological proliferation. Among the thousands of invited guests, it was a statistical inevitability that a handful of them harbored impure thoughts. The Red Three’s security forces likely managed to identify them and planned to observe them or arrest them after the party had come to an end. In any case, one of the most important phases of the birthday party was still in progress. After much fanfare, Marigold Larkinson had finally debuted in public. Almost everyone was shocked. Was Marigold Larkinson an artifact or a human? Nobody knew! All they understood so far was that Marigold was either a human who could transform into an inanimate object, or the other way around. Even the birthday girl herself became stumped by the sight. "Is that... the Flower Parasol?" Ves nodded as he placed an encouraging hand on her shoulder. "Yes, my dear. The base version of the Flower Parasol was not up to standard, so I upgraded it. One thing led to another, causing me to accidentally give it a human form. This is neat, huh? I have reinvented the artifact. Its features are too numerous to count, but the most important part is that I have reinforced it with superdimensional alloy and incorporated modern electronic systems into its extradimensional space." "That is not the biggest upgrade of this artifact." "You are right, Aurelia. The use of a rare material has unexpectedly caused the artifact to gain the ability to transform into the human form you see before you. Marigold Larkinson has transcended her origin. She is no longer a pure artifact anymore as far as I am considered. While she is not technically a human, she has gained so much humanity that I already consider her a member of the family. She is like one of our cats in this regard." This was not nearly enough to explain Marigold’s actual condition, but further explanations could wait for later. By now, Marigold floated before her destined owner and partner. The humanized artifact still contained an excess amount of E energy that she was not able to digest at the moment. This caused her to light up and exude a charged aura. The contrast between Marigold and Aurelia was striking. The former looked like a warrior maiden who looked ready to smite the infidels The latter appeared like a calm and composed young lady who would rather spend her time sipping tea rather than get her hands dirty. It didn’t look as if the two of them were compatible at all, yet as they continued to stare into each other’s eyes, an invisible connection formed between the two. They already accepted each other into their lives without needing to exchange any vows. The two girls raised both of their arms and held each other’s hands. Warmth flowed through both of them. Marigold’s skin felt so real that Aurelia truly couldn’t detect anything that was suspicious enough to be fake. "I am yours." Marigold whispered to the birthday girl. "I shall protect you and accompany you for as long as you will have me. I was made to shield you from any harm and to care for your physical and mental wellbeing. You will never be alone anymore. With me by your side, your enemies will never succeed in bringing you harm. Will you accept me into your life?" "I do." Aurelia responded without delay. "My father has made you for a purpose. I will not deny your desire to fulfill your duty. Can you... change back to your other form?" "I can. You do not need to ask. Just hold the intention in your mind. I can read you well enough to switch whenever you wish." Marigold smiled one more time before she instantly transformed into her decorative umbrella form. The change happened within eyesight of many powerful and knowledgeable people. The mech designers and scientists were all amazed. They had used their augmented eyes and cranial implants to record as much data from Marigold and her transformations as possible. While the data was hardly comprehensive due to the limited hardware, they were still able to perceive that Marigold did not teleport away while a different artifact quickly shifted into place. Their sensors detected no signs of any distinctive spatial readings of teleportation and displacement events. It appeared as if Marigold possessed two physical forms that she could seamlessly transition into. A significant amount of E energy was involved, which meant that this transition was largely mystical in nature. The best way to describe it was as if she was a mech that could transform between a humanoid and a starfighter, but her alternate form just happened to be a lot more divergent than usual. Whether Marigold was ’human’ enough to bleed when wounded or age as she grew older remained to be seen. Whatever the case, the realization that Ves had made a living artifact that could transform into a human-like form caused a sensation among a lot of people! The news spread rapidly beyond the Microplanet. Many people who originally had better things to do than watch the live broadcast of a birthday party urgently tuned in so that they could observe Marigold with their own eyes. When they rewatched the footage of her transformations, they immediately wanted to accuse Ves of faking his latest invention. Yet the people on the scene did not convey their objections. They had seen enough to conclude that this phenomenon was likely real. Was it truly possible to transform an object into a living human being or at least the facsimile of one? 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺 It sounded absurd, but anything was possible in the Age of Dawn! Ves was already famed for being able to design living mechs that could become as intelligent as real human beings. It was not that much of a leap to go from designing mechs with human-like sentience to creating an artifact that just so happened to gain the ability to take on a fake but convincingly human secondary form! As soon as people began to accept the reality of this new phenomenon, they immediately wanted to know whether they could produce their own transformable objects. What ingredient did Ves use to make Marigold Larkinson? Was the result dependent on this key material, or could people produce similar results with other ingredients? People badly wanted to know how Ves managed to create this miracle of human engineering!