The return of the first group and the imminent departure of the second group of Avatars and Sentinels led to a lot of activity.

Mechs moved in and out of workshops while the returning soldiers received the care and attention they needed.

The Cloud Estate temporarily hosted the stressed and war-stricken veterans who had to get used to normality after months of non-stop fighting.

Ves frequently moved around to meet with various people.

He discussed the disposition of the returning soldiers with Commander Melkor.

He talked to Commander Magdalena about stockpiling more supplies.

He granted a larger budget to the Foundation in order to give Director Clinton the facilities and manpower needed to treat the wounded.

Of course, he also met with each individual Avatar in person. He did this not only to show his appreciation, but also observe how they changed.

In general, he was very satisfied with the quality of Avatar soldiers. Forged in battle, each of them had shed their frivolity and groundless bravado. The only ones who were able to survive the meat grinder of the front lines were those whose willpower were akin to compress alloy.

Each veteran Avatar reminded Ves of the old Swordmaidens. Just like him, the Swordmaidens subjected their prospective sisters to a brutal survival test.

The graduating Swordmaidens were dropped onto an untamed planet. There, they had to survive the alien wilderness, track down a deadly exobeast and slay it in single combat with nothing but a sword!

Suffice to say, not a lot of Swordmaidens emerged out of this harsh ritual.

Yet those who did always turned out to be elites that Commander Lydia could rely upon to form the core of her organization.

When Ves met with every blooded Avatars, he could hardly keep his joy contained! None of them were exactly pleased with the hards.h.i.+ps and near-deaths they faced during their deployments. Their feelings towards the man responsible for subjecting them to turtore weren't exactly positive.

Regardless, Ves did not worry about any betrayal or defection. He understood that all of his Avatars had toiled too much to quit at this point. With the help of sunk cost fallacy, Ves employed his Devil Tongue to the fullest in order to remind them of the rewards they had in store.

"Each of you will enjoy an exalted status within my organization. As my elite Avatars, you are ent.i.tled to pilot some of the best standard mechs I design. Not only that, I will invest considerable resources in order to retrain you into second-cla.s.s mech pilots. A bright future awaits. Languis.h.i.+ng in a poor third-rate state is not in the cards for you as long as you renew your commitment."

Even if his message wasn't always well-received, Ves did not worry about anyone going rogue. The Avatars were surrounded by his subordinates. They didn't have anyone by their side who could persuade them to quit or worse.

Perhaps the only individual that Ves couldn't solve was William Urbesh.

As soon as the man stepped into his office, William marched forward with an unnaturally stiff gait before facing Ves in complete silence.

Ves awkwardly gestured to the chair, motioning for his latest visitor to sit.

"h.e.l.lo."

"..."

"Okay. You go by Silent William these days, right?"

"..."

"How was your first real combat deployment? Have you received enough stimulation? My purpose for attaching you to the Avatars is to facilitate your advancement to expert candidate. After all, real combat is the best way to bring out a mech pilot's potential. How much progress have you made?"

Silent William continued to stare at Ves with steely eyes as his mouth remained shut. No matter how many times Ves prompted him, the Urbesh clansman did not utter any word!

Ves realized that it was pointless to get William to say anything. He doubted whether the disconcertingly silent mech pilot was truly mute.

Yet no matter how much of the original William was left, Ves still had a mission to fulfill.

"You know you won't be able to get rid of me until you advance to expert candidate, right?" He spoke. "I'll throw you to the sandmen again and again until you finally make a breakthrough!"

Ves did not have any good options aside from pus.h.i.+ng William to the brink. Even if the chance of death was ever-present, he was more than willing to make this gamble!

It helped that Silent William's performance was exemplary for a normal mech pilot. William always possessed an excellent piloting foundation due to the intensive training he went through. The Rim Guardians also threw him in some of their excellent training programs in an attempt to break his psychological aversion to combat.

William never had the opportunity to show off his abundant acc.u.mulation due to his previous mental blocks. Only after Ves got rid of them did the foreign mech pilot finally demonstrate why the Urbesh Clan used to be a respected power from the Garlen Empire!

Ves scratched his head. Talking to William was like talking to a wall. The lack of meaningful responses threw him off-kilter.

"You know what, screw this." He muttered and turned around. "Nitaa, go knock William out."

"Yes, sir."

His bodyguard didn't question his strange order and immediately moved into action. She drew a electrifier pistol from one of her holsters and immediately blasted William with a stun ray.

BZZT!

No matter what abomination William had turned into, his flesh was still human. He lost consciousness in an instant.

Ves calmly activated some security measures that locked and isolated his office. Jammers came online, causing Lucky to be disturbed from his nap.

He picked up his pet and tossed him in the air. His cat hastily stabilized his trajectory.

"Meow!"

"Stop lazying around and help me inspect William."

"Meow meow."

After making his displeasure known, Lucky eventually did what he was told and floated down on William's chest. He sniffed all over the mech pilot slumped onto his seat.

"Meow."

"You sure?"

"Meow meow meow!"

"Okay."

William carried no weapons, bugs or anything dangerous. His body only contained a couple of implants that were harmless in this situation.

Once Lucky finished his inspection, Nitaa stepped forward and inspected William's body.

"He's clear."

Considering William's strangeness, Ves did not think it was excessive to check him twice.

Only after he was absolutely sure that William posed no threat to him did he approach the unconscious mech pilot's body.

He hardly sensed anything abnormal when William was out cold. If anyone told Ves that William possessed at least a partial alien influence in his mind, he would never believe such a wild claim.

Both Ves, Lucky and Nitaa stared down at the slumped figure with an unreasonable amount of caution.

"So. There is nothing on him that poses a threat?"

"As far as I'm aware of, he's defenseless." Nitaa spoke.

"Okay."

Ves tentatively stepped closer until he was able to place his palm on top of William's head.

Since William was determined to maintain his silent act, there was no way Ves could glean any details from the mech pilot.

So he decided to go straight to the source.

Voices lied, but spirituality never deceived.

As soon as Ves concentrated his mind and extended his spirituality, he could feel the strength hidden deep inside the Urbesh clansman.

The consequences of performing spiritual surgery on William's head were as clear as day to him. A strange balance had emerged in the mech pilot's mind and spiritual potential.

A weaker portion consisted of William's pure humanity. A hefty dose of cowardice still resided here, counterbalancing the aggressive and chaotic attributes of the stronger portion.

Ves truly had no idea who was in charge. It could be that neither William nor an offshoot of Nyxie was in charge of William's mind and body.

Perhaps the current William was a new ent.i.ty that inherited the traits of both.

"He's like my spiritual product." Ves suddenly realized.

He widened his eyes. The notion sounded ridiculous, but Ves could not dismiss this crazy possibility.

Had he really displaced the old William by inadvertently turning his spiritual potential into a spiritual product?

"This can't be true!"

In the end, he knew too little about the interaction between spirituality and someone's personality. Affecting one inevitably affected the other, but how interconnected were they really?

After a bit of thought, he dismissed the crazy theory he came up with. He didn't feel as if he mixed William and Nyxie into a third ent.i.ty. The spiritual attributes that belonged to his old self and the ancient alien spiritual ent.i.ty maintained a very clear separation.

The situation looked similar to two neighboring hostile states locked in a stalemate.

The original William may be on the backfoot, but he was fighting on home ground. His mind and spiritual potential originally belonged to him, so it possessed a considerable defensive advantage.

As for Nyxie, his unwelcome intrusion into William's spiritual potential couldn't be dislodged either. The alien was too strong in the spiritual department, and even if Ves only introduced him into William's mind through contamination, his spiritual quality was far too high.

The more Ves explored William's mind, the more he figured Silent William out. He had truly become a fusion of two separate influences. He possessed the old William's humanity and Nyxie's alien cruelty and strength at the same time!

Such a combination did not appear very stable to Ves. Many of William's attributes were highly opposed to Nyxie's attributes and vice versa.

However, the two spiritual influences somehow managed to end up in a tenuous balance.

This was because neither side possessed the strength to overpower the other and take over William's mind and body for themselves!

As long as this balance wasn't disrupted, Ves expected the new William to be able to take advantage of both influences.

Nyxie provided the strength and daring to pursue greater power.

The old William reined Nyxie in and inserted some very necessary human norms to the new William.

All of this sounded great, but the condition of William's mind and spiritual potential grew too slowly. After months of continuous high-intensity battles, Silent William barely developed his spiritual potential.

The strongest indicator for this lack of progress was that Silent William hadn't come close to developing a force of will. His mind was chaotic and full of conflicting and contradictory thoughts.

The lack of a unifying ideal prevented William from elevating it into a spiritually-empowered conviction.

"Do I have to perform another bout of surgery?" He mused.

He already operated on his test subject once. He might as well do it again in order to finish the job.

Yet when he thought how messy William became after his first round of surgery, Ves quickly shook his head.

He was playing with forces he didn't fully understand. He lacked the theoretical foundation to manipulate William's mind with purpose.

In the end, he decided on a more direct approach.

"Wake him up, Nitaa."

"On it."

As soon as Nitaa injected some sort of stimulant in William's bloodstream, the man immediately woke up and tried to get his bearings back.

Despite getting knocked out, Silent William did not exhibit any strong reaction. He merely stared at Ves with his disconcerting eyes.

Ves tried his best not to feel spooked.

"h.e.l.lo again, William."

"..."

"Since you aren't one for small talk, I'll just get straight to the point. As a Larkinson, I'm very familiar on how to nurture an expert candidate. After inspecting you, I think I know the reason why you haven't made any progress on this front."

"..."

"The answer is very simple, really. Your mind is too mixed and unfocused. Every expert pilot I've met has dedicated themselves to a single principle or ideal. Some fight because they want to vanquish evil. Others fight to protect their home state. Many simply want to become the strongest warrior in the galaxy. No matter what they chose to dedicate their lives to, you don't appear to have a goal."

Silent William finally showed a reaction. A hint of confusion glinted in his eyes.