The Mech Touch

Chapter 6578 The Maiden Knife

When the System presented the second upgrade track to Ves, it did not take long for him to speculate on whether there was a possible connection between Demoncasting and Lucky's gems.

He did not have enough conclusive proof that this connection existed, but the possibility of it made the upgrade track a little more tantalizing!

So far, the initial demon refining process unfolded in accordance with the tutorial on the instruction steles!

The demonic flames painfully burned the defiant demon to the point the latter started to lose definition.

This was a crucial process. Ves had to make the refinement process last long enough to burn away enough impurities and make the demon pliable enough to squeeze inside the Demoncasting Mold and obediently adopt the right configuration.

Pull the demon out of the demonic flames too soon, and it would not only put up a greater fight, but also fail to properly fill up the mold.

Pull the demon out too late, and too much of its potential would have burned away, resulting in a more obedient but also substantially weaker end result.

If Ves wanted to play it safe, then he should have waited a little longer until the ancient maiden burned to the brink of nihility.

However, Ves was a Senior Mech Designer. He believed he could improvise his way through his first Demoncasting attempt while trying to create more than just a basic beginner's product.

This was why he fished the 'ancient maiden' out of the demonic flames when she still retained a considerable amount of definition.

The tutorial clearly described how to do that. Ves used a pair of tongs that were somehow empowered to hold and suppress a demon.

While the tongs did a good job of preventing the moderately refined demon from getting loose, he had to exert a considerable amount of force to counteract the ancient maiden's resistance!

He ignored her soul-shaking screams as best as possible and quickly stuffed her into a mechanism that sucked her in before pressing her into the prepared Demoncasting Mold.

There was not much Ves could do to influence the process from here. Demoncasters were mostly expected to stand back and stay vigilant until the demon thoroughly filled the mold.

They then needed to press the mold against the target object at the right time in order for the processed demon to adhere to a new physical home.

Ves did not have a good understanding of the right timing, so he relied entirely on his intuition and guesswork to carefully lower the Demoncasting Mold until it gently made contact with the combat knife.

A mysterious process ensued. Somehow, the Demoncasting Mold automatically 'poured' the transformed demon into the knife donated by Ketis.

It became clear to both mech designers that this was not a casual step, but a process that was carefully controlled by the mold and maybe another apparatus.

This process enabled the processed demon to integrate into the knife in a different manner than Ves had witnessed in the past.

He felt that the integration sequence went further and applied more force, as if the mold was trying to stuff the transformed ancient maiden so deeply into the weapon that she could not break out by relying on her own force!

"Look!" Ketis gasped and pointed at the knife! "The changes go beyond spiritual alterations. The knife is beginning to undergo a physical transformation!"

Ves expected this to happen. He recalled the inexplicable transformations of Elegant. Rage and the Zeal during their ill-fated mission against the Emperor Tree. While Ves did not know what happened to them at the time, he now understood that the living mechs became corrupted by the Emperor Tree, which was apparently so similar in nature to a demon that they went through a process that Ves decided to call 'demonization.

The current Demoncasting process produced a reaction that shared so many similarities with what Ves had managed to observe in certain pieces of archival footage that they had to be same in essence.

Just as Ves surmised, the process of demonization did not always have to be an accidental case of uncontrolled transformation.

Perhaps the first Demoncasters had witnessed wild demonization before and thought to themselves that they could tame and control this dangerous reaction.

It was quite worthwhile for them to do so as demonized products tended to become a lot more powerful at the cost of losing control!

From the perspective of a producer, Demoncasting should therefore be a planned and controlled process to harness the power of demonization.

The goal was to produce the highest possible increase in strength while limiting the negative side effects as much as possible.

Demoncasting and especially Demonforging constantly tested the craftsman's ability to balance between power and control.

Ves couldn't help but smirk.

Interesting!

He enjoyed this challenge!

He already looked forward to mastering these difficult production processes step by step!

Nothing would interest him more than to master the art of Demoncasting and Demonforging to the point where he could surpass the methods of his predecessors and elevate these methods to the next level!

Ves believed that there should definitely be a correlation between living mechs and Demoncasting.

Perhaps they may even be part of the same underlying phenomenon, only expressed in vastly different ways!

He did not think that was a likely possibility, though. A more plausible theory was that they were still different enough that they could coexist with each other. That gave Ves the opportunity to create brand-new synergies between living mechs and D-mechs! In any case, enough time had passed for the Demoncast Mold to complete its job. It automatically raised in height before settling into a rest position. "Mhmm. This entire step is automated. That is convenient. Let's go and see the result." The combat knife that Ketis presented to Ves earlier had changed beyond recognition. If anyone saw the original knife alongside the one that presented its new form to the mech designers, nobody would think they had any relations with each other! The mass, volume, color, design language and material properties were all different! They didn't even appear to have been designed and built in the same plane of

existence!

The combat knife was a product of solid skill and practical efficiency. Ketis had forged the knife to serve as a reliable backup weapon, nothing more, nothing less.

As for the... pink monstrosity that signified Ves' first attempt at Demoncasting, it looked as if it had been designed by a demented woman who had an unnatural obsession for spikes, needless inefficiency and above all else the color pink. Ves could recognize a vague but ultimately futile attempt at turning the weapon into an elegant and beautiful D-arm.

What went wrong was that the source of transformation retained too much of herself that she actively resisted her captivity and deviated from the shape she was forced to adopt by the Demoncasting mold.

The result was a partial failure where the demonization process ultimately went out of

control.

While the outcome wasn't as bad as complete demonization, Ves had clearly botched

the timing and other parameters and produced a D-arm that was ultimately unqualified to serve as an effective weapon.

Ketis sneered at the monstrosity of what her weapon had become. "This is a torture instrument, both to the wielder and to the enemy. Look at these spikes. Some of them actually curve towards the wielder. If you wield it as if you do a regular knife, the chances are great that you will accidentally puncture yourself. The hilt has grown needlessly short, and the blade has gained unnecessary curvature.

However..."

"Does the weapon have any good points in your opinion?"

The swordmaster pulled out a small multiscanner from one of her pockets and began

to use it to take measurements of the weapon.

The multiscanner beeped in alarm, signifying that it failed to properly measure some

of the physical traits of the D-arm.

"While much of the energy from the... demon... probably went to waste, at least somen/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

of her energy ended up doing a bit of good. The alloy of the blade has changed beyond recognition. Preliminary scans show it has become at least 40 percent tougher. The edge has also become sharper. These spikes look weak and thin, but they are actually much stronger. They can probably be used to puncture through light armor. I think there is also more to this weapon than the purely physical transformations. I can feel it. The ancient maiden... is beckoning me to pick up the knife. My instincts are warning me that she has ill intentions."

"What are you waiting for, then? Try it out. You're the swordmaster here. You should be able to glean much more information out of it than I." Ves said.

Ketis did not hesitate for long. She picked the weapon up by the short hilt and soon

began to close her eyes.

She deliberately withdrew her willpower and allowed the pink knife to influence her to

a certain extent.

An inexplicable change swept across her body. Ketis had never been the most. attractive woman amidst designer babies and faces that had been carefully sculpted to

perfection, but somehow the odd pink knife injected her with energy that caused her to look more attractive than usual.

He recalled the description of the gem he used to source the demon and understood that the D-arm faithfully reproduced the original effect.

It was too bad that the knife was a poor fit with Ketis. She looked more charming, but she did not have much of it to begin with. The weapon would probably produce a much stronger effect if held by a more classically beautiful woman such as Gloriana. This beauty effect was not the only change induced by the D-arm.

It coomed to have come alive in Kotic' hand. It iorbed around as if it wanted Kotic to

stab herself. It also produced spiritual activity that suggested to Ves that it was mindlessly screaming its pain and fury towards its wielder!

Ketis stoically withstood the attacks with the help of her firm willpower. She only gave enough ground to get an impression of how the pink knife affected its wielder.

"So what did you find out, Ketis?"

"The 'demon' is not rational." She said. "A small part of her is forced to empower the

knife and force its blade to become a better cutting implement than it should. Another part of her has gone completely crazy and out of control. The rest has turned into a

ball of rage, pain and trauma. Think about it, Ves. What if I toss your body into a fire that is so powerful that it burns your very soul? Stuck you into a supernatural mold and forcibly transform you from a free human being into a manufactured product that has lost its name, its pride, its dignity and its freedom? How would you feel if your body is forcibly squeezed, amputated and contorted into the shape of a weapon? The only things left in your world are pain, fury and purpose. You have become the worst

kind of slave that can exist, one that does not have the option to resist her new painful new fate."

Ves frowned when he heard that. He did not care too much about the pain and stuff. What irritated him was the mention of wasted energy.

Even though this was his very first attempt at Demoncasting, he still felt this outcome

was a blow to his pride as a creator.

"Why are the results so poor?"

"There are many reasons. The fit between the demon, the mold and the object is too

low. Trying to turn the ancient maiden into a source of attack enhancement is like trying to use a cotton shirt as armor. The demon also has a poor connection with a modern combat knife. The botched timing and other imperfect steps don't help matters either. If you have gained more practice and made choices that better fit with

each other, I have a feeling you could have been able to obtain a weapon that is twice or thrice as deadly as this pink knife."

"I see. All of your points make sense. I really screwed up by selecting the wrong mold and object to be demonized. Well, at least I learned my lesson."