Chapter 3163: The Meaning of Sentry

With the surprising descent of the Superior Mother, the entire workshop became charged with energy!

Every mech designer sensed a strong and firm presence watching down on them all. Despite the Superior Mother's oppressiveness, her sharp edge was not present today.

Instead, everyone felt the enormous presence exude a glow that could only be described as maternal joy and love. The womanly and motherly aspects of the Superior Mother had come forth, drawn by a pregnant woman's own love and devotion!

What made this moment even more remarkable was the strong family relations between them all. Gloriana was her daughter-in-law and the child in her belly could be considered the Supreme's directly related granddaughter in a way!

As the model of a good mother, how could the ancestral spirit be any worse as a grandmother?

"She's really spoiling her granddaughter though." Ves muttered.

The Superior Mother did not stage this grand appearance to impress her majesty to the mech designers. She had a definite purpose in mind. For whatever reason, she chose to descend and pa.s.s her blessings when the carrier of her grandchild was in one of her best states.

Ves recognized that it was easier for the Superior Mother to connect with Gloriana when the latter was emotionally and spiritually excited. It also helped that she was in the same room as the giant lightning-struck statue that originally birthed the ancestral spirit!

All of these circ.u.mstances provided the Superior Mother with a fantastic opportunity to check up on her future granddaughter and provide her own blessings!

The final condition that enabled her to intervene was that Gloriana's unborn child already possessed an absurdly strong spirituality. Ves had constantly accelerated her spiritual development by feeding her with his own purified spiritual energy. Even though he felt that much of it either went to waste or got converted into something else at extremely low efficiencies, there was no doubt that his daughter took at least some of his energy as her own. Day by day, the drops of energy had already acc.u.mulated to quite a potent reserve for a baby that hadn't even left her mother's womb!

For a moment, he grew worried whether the Superior Mother would ruin his arrangements. The reason why he constantly empowered his upcoming child was because he wanted to bestow her with a companion spirit seed. This took up a lot of spiritual capacity, which made it all the more important that it wasn't taken up by something else!

So far, Ves did not see anything that suggested that she was ruining his original plan. He wasn't sure what the Superior Mother was doing, but most of the Superior Mother's energy flowed through Gloriana and directly entered the cells that made up his daughter's body.

Ves vaguely sensed a strange reaction taking place. According to his perception, the Superior Mother was acting on the residual life-attributed spiritual energy that his daughter's tiny body had absorbed, empowering it and using it as a channel to transform the unborn child's flesh in some mysterious fas.h.i.+on!

The remarkable event seemed to take hours, but ended just a minute later.

His tiny daughter's body and spirit were both tiny and malleable in their unborn state, so the Superior Mother could easily apply her blessings. Once the fetus no longer experienced any further changes, the grand presence receded a bit and seemed to give the little girl's pristine spirit a gentle caress before drawing away.

Though Gloriana didn't receive any direct gifts herself, the fact that she acted as a willing and eager channel for the idol she wors.h.i.+pped the most was definitely a boon in itself!

When the Superior Mother finally receded completely, the statue no longer surged with energy and the workshop was no longer graced by her exceptional consciousness.

A long silence ensued. The current fabrication tasks that everyone had previously been working upon had all been paused with one notable exception.

Though Gloriana no longer hosted a powerful ent.i.ty, the residual energy of the Superior Mother still clung to her form, attracted by his wife's own maternal desires!

This extra byproduct seemed to invigorate her as if it was a powerful stimulant. Her eyes shone with more brilliance than ever while her spirit had become so elevated that it seemed as if it was about to ascend!

If her earlier mental state was already good, now it was as if she was on fire!

Her hands whizzed across the controls as she fine-tuned the fabrication of an extremely delicate component. Her judgement, intuition and mental processing speed had all been raised to their limits.

Though it was quite burdensome for Gloriana to work at such an extreme load, the energies that flowed through her body and spirituality perfectly propped her up and gave her the strength she needed to maintain her peak state!

There was no way that Ves wanted to waste such a good turn of events. While he had lots of questions and wanted to examine his unborn daughter's altered state in detail, this was not the time to interrupt the fabrication attempt.

No matter what, Ves trusted the Superior Mother not to harm or screw up his future daughter. His spiritual sweeps did not detect anything amiss and his intuition was completely convinced that his daughter came about better after this experience.

"That's good enough, I guess."

He discarded all of his worries and fully embraced the moment. Just like Gloriana, Ves also gained a rush from witnessing his mother bless his child.

Both of their excellents moods bled over through the design network, filling it up with love, joy and an unprecedented degree of motivation towards finis.h.i.+ng their expert mech!

Of the remaining two mech designers, Juliet had gotten caught up in the excitement as well. Even though she was not a direct beneficiary of what happened, witnessing and feeling the Superior Mother take concrete action in the strongest fas.h.i.+on was an unforgettable moment for her. After knowing that the Supreme was paying attention to them somehow, she wanted to appear at her absolute best. Anything less would be a disgrace.

"I'm a Penitent Sister! I must prove myself worthy to the Superior Mother so that my child will also receive a blessing one day!"

Compared to Ves, Gloriana and Juliet, Ketis maintained her composure. Though she was happy for her mentor and his wife, as a swordmaster in her own right she always believed in her own strength. Her will was solid and her att.i.tude towards the Superior Mother was one of respect, not wors.h.i.+p.

"Well, whatever is going on right now, I'm not complaining."

Her contribution to the Sentry Project was a lot less than customary, but Ketis still identified herself as one of the designers and makers of this expert mech. She did not reject the buoyant influence from the design network even though she could easily block it out. Just like the rest, she fully embraced the moment and immersed herself in the rising tide.

Roughly an hour went by until the high tide had finally faded. Blinky's ability to maintain his design network was still limited, and all of the excitement that previously took place did not change this basic quality.

Mrow…

"You've done a good job, Blinky. You can rest now." Ves gently stroked his companion spirit's head before allowing the cat to enter his mind.

Everyone already expected the design network to go offline, so the Journeymen had all been ready for it to happen. Everyone's productivity immediately dropped by a noticeable margin, but not as much as Ves had feared.

Even without the benefit of Blinky's helpful ability, the mech designers were all pumped up. The realization that this day was special caused them to hold on to their fantastic moods.

With their overflowing morale, they did not even feel tired despite working intensively for several hours.

Under this combined influence, the parts they churned out were not only consistently high in quality, but came with their own unique charm that carried the hopes and dreams of their creators.

The Sentry Project was called this way because the expert mech was meant to act as a vigilant soldier who stood guard in front of the Larkinson Clan. Any enemy that approached and threatened the fleet and the people aboard them had to be shot down before any Larkinson came under threat!

This meaning also harkened back to the Battle of Reckoning where an enemy expert mech came extremely close to reaching the Spirit of Bentheim, threatening the entire vessel and everyone aboard including innocent civilians such as mothers and children.

Since the Larkinsons were nomadic and lived on stars.h.i.+ps, the people who resided on them constantly had to fear for their own lives when battle broke out. It was the job of the mech legions to s.h.i.+eld the Larkinson clansmen from harm, but as the aforementioned battle already showed, this was not enough sometimes.

Each and every expert mech of the Larkinson Clan played an important role in defending the innocents, but none were more critical than the Sentry Project.

The other expert mechs needed to spend a lot of time and find a good opportunity to close in on a threatening opponent. As much as Ves appreciated the speed and power of the Dark Zephyr, it could not come to the fleet's a.s.sistance if it was stuck on the other side of the battlefield!

This was where a ranged expert mech was able to show its value. In a battle in open s.p.a.ce, such a mech was able to attack at nearly every target at every position at very long ranges.

It did not have to move forward in order to attack a distant target, which meant it was always ready and always poised to shoot down a powerful mech that had somehow managed to outmaneuver or break through the lines of existing Larkinson mechs.

Paired with the s.h.i.+eld of Samar, the Sentry Project was meant to serve as the final line of defense against other expert mechs.

This was the driving motivation behind this expert mech design project, but now it had taken on an extra meaning. Ves and Gloriana wanted to do their best to create the strongest possible expert rifleman mech so that it could become a guardian against any enemy that could threaten their child!

This slight change in nuance was a deviation from the original design of the Sentry Project. Yet instead of leading the fabrication run astray, it empowered it because this additional intention was fully compatible with the original intention of the expert mech!

In a way, the Sentry Project had taken on a more personal meaning to Ves and Gloriana. As future parents, their interest in seeing this expert rifleman mech did well was significantly higher than before.

"I am not a mech pilot." Ves spoke as he acc.u.mulated his own intensity as he shaped the most exquisite luminar crystals that he had made so far. "I can't go on the battlefield and defend my children in person. The only way I can keep my babies safe is to do the best I can on a different battlefield!"

He readily channeled the Ill.u.s.trious One as he manipulated the crystal cube, causing him to appear as if he had become an embodiment of light, crystals and perhaps even more.

His recently-acquired insights along with his strong motivation caused him to develop an even greater feel for the crystals he was making. The rifle parts he made became more l.u.s.trous as Ves not only refined his method of infusing them with spiritual energy, but also made small spontaneous tweaks to their physical design by following his instincts and intuition.

This rifle was about to become something special!

Several more hours went by as Blinky enjoyed enough rest to activate his design network once again. The four Journeymen worked with gusto for two straight hours before they were finally beset with fatigue at the end.

While the other mech designers could go on for a time, Gloriana had no choice but to take a break in order to preserve her health and the health of her baby.