The Mech Touch

Chapter 6598 Filling Up The Jars

Shortly after Veronica fabricated the 5 Demon Mixers, Helena needed to stuff them with the specified amount of Minor Demons as ordinary souls if applicable,

The Daughter of Death expressed a little hesitation about the use of the latter, but Veronica quickly persuaded her that this was for the greater good.

"Let the deceased play out their final value to the living they have left behind."

Principles were important, but survival was even more important. Everything Veronica did in relation to Demoncasting was ultimately meant to give her counterpart in the Red Ocean a better chance to survive the crises engulfing the Red Ocean.

"Will the souls even fit inside the Demon Mixers?" Helena questioned.

"I don't know." Veronica honestly replied. "Just try it out. You can stop early if the Demon Mixers have reached their capacity. By the way, make sure to place the soul of an expert pilot in each of the five Demon Mixers whenever possible."

After a bit more coaxing, the Daughter of Death proceeded to fill them all up with the required amount of souls.

Both of them paid careful attention to the first Demon Mixer as it began to accommodate 20 Minor Demons.

These were all recently transformed beings of pure malevolence and aggression. The vast majority of them were originally deceased Journeymen, with only a pair of demons that were originally derived from Seniors.

There were surprisingly a lot of Journeyman Mech Designers in the Yeina Star Cluster that never made any further progress in their careers.

For them to die after forming their initial design philosophies yet failing to reach the threshold of a Senior Mech Designer seemed perplexing to Ves at first.

Then he learned that the vast majority of them consisted of third-class mech designers. That explained a lot.

Third-class Journeymen were predominantly baseline humans who were too poor to afford a set of augmentations.

Without the cognitive enhancements that could increase their learning ability and mental processing power, it was truly too difficult for them to maintain a high level of productivity.

They took decades to learn knowledge that second-raters could master in a few years. They designed very simple and basic third-class mechs that did not offer a lot of room for more expensive and impactful forms of technological expression.

They were also predominantly dependent mech designers who could only participate in the design projects formulated by their superiors.

Unless these third-class mech designers managed to showcase enough potential to get promoted to a second-class mech designer, it shouldn't be too surprising that they failed to get much further than the rank of Journeyman!

Ves still remembered that during the days when he was a citizen of the Bright Republic, he looked up to Senior Mech Designers as the top of their profession.

While it was not impossible for third-class mech designers to attain the rank of Master Mech Designers, they usually immigrated to second-rate states as soon as they showcased enough talent and potential to succeed.

Why would they voluntarily choose to stay in a third-rate state that possessed very limited wealth and growth opportunities?

In short, third-class mech designers who failed to transfer to a second-rate state mostly lived a miserable existence.

Their society did not have the luxury to uplift mech designers who lacked the competence and value to make themselves useful in the second-class mech industry. Veronica realized that she could have easily become one of these forgotten losers. Becoming a Journeyman was an accomplishment, but it was already the end of the road for these miserable third-raters. Most of them probably died with regrets in their hearts. Even if becoming a Journeyman Mech Designer was the equivalent of becoming a well-respected senior engineer in a typical third-rate state, their good incomes and slightly upscale living conditions could not make up for their inability to catch up to the greatest examples of the mech industry.

Instead of becoming a dignified Master Mech Designer or a legendary Star Designer, these third-raters could only lament their baseline human limitations and their lack of opportunities to become greater.

If they were born in a second-rate state, then they would have been able to grasp much greater opportunities to promote to the rank of Senior and maybe even Master in their lifetimes.

Instead, their starting point in a third-rate state had already locked them in a life of insignificance and mediocrity.

Only a handful of exceptional third-raters such as Veronica, Ketis and most recently Maikel Larkinson all managed to demonstrate their brilliance and became qualified to join the first-class mech industry.

They were very much the exception rather than the rule. They were statistical outliers who did not amount to much in the mech industry as a whole.

The vast majority of third-class mech designers would never have a chance to experience the true splendor of mechs.

With no prospect of advancing to godhoods, these individuals ultimately had no choice but to surrender to reality and understand that they were no different from other

well-educated engineering professionals.

Veronica sympathised quite a lot with these third-class mech designers, but that did not stop her from requesting Helena to convert them all into Minor Demons!

In fact, these third-class Journeymen and Seniors should feel lucky that Veronica had the need for their services after their demise!

Instead of dying without being able to make a single noticeable difference in the course of human history, these souls went through a powerful transformation that made them a lot stronger and deadlier than before!

Now, they were about to get stuffed inside the Demon Mixers where they would gain the chance to fight for a chance of attaining greatness!

If everything went right, the winner would devour the nutrients of their defeated foes and successfully evolve into a Major Demon, which was practically equivalent to a

Master Mech Designer in terms of life level!

This was an unimaginably high position to mech designers who previously never had a chance of attaining such an exalted rank,Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Sure, the souls of all of these 'lucky' mech designers first had to be tortured by the Death Feather before undergoing an irreversible process of demonization that stripped them of all of their rationality, but these were mere details compared to their brand-new

futures!

Once the Major Demons came into existence, Ves would definitely Demoncast them into all manner of powerful D-mechs and D-arms.

This way, the transformed demons would be able to make massive contributions in the battles to come.

With these thoughts in mind, Ves no longer felt so bad about the ordeals these Minor Demons had to overcome.

"It is starting" The Helcat mentioned as she floated besides the other cat. "I can feel the onset of death inside the Demon Mixer. The Minor Demons have already begun to brutalize each other without any thought."

Veronica could not sense the precise conditions taking place inside. Even Helena could only gain a broad overview of the demon gu cultivation process despite the fact that she

was one of its design spirits.

This was a deliberate design choice in order to maintain the sanctity of the ritualistic

killing process.

While neither of the two could see the Minor Demons fighting against each other

without any restraint, they were still able to guess what was happening by reading the energy fluctuations coming from the giant container.

"The first round of fighting will probably take a while to conclude. Veronica surmised. "These Minor Demons can withstand a lot of punishment. The small amount of life

energy injected by Gaia is also able to prolong their staying power."

Neither Veronica nor Helena knew how long it would take for the first Demon Mixer to

complete the process, but it shouldn't be as long as the other demimechs due to

concentrating just 20 Minor Demons.

Helena proceeded to fill up the second Demon Mixer.

She felt a little more strain as she forcefully stuffed double the amount of Minor Demons

than before.

The second Demon Mixer soon began to produce significantly stronger and more active energy fluctuations. Veronica even had the illusion that the machine was physically vibrating due to the intensity of all of the fighting.

"Continue." Veronica ordered.

Helena truly began to feel greater strain this time as she tried to stuff a whopping 80 Minor Demons inside a single sloppily designed and hastily fabricated demimech. Perhaps Veronica had been a little too greedy and ambitious for deciding to stuff 80 Minor Demons inside the third Demon Mixer!

It was clear that Helena was already approaching the maximum capacity of this

specialized mech!

"Do you want to stop carly, Helena? I don't want to accidentally blow up the third Demon

Mixer."

"No. I can still do it. The resistance is greater, but my strength is not weak."

In the end, Helena ultimately managed to concentrate 80 Minor Demons inside the third

giant jar. The machine subsequently began to release much stronger energy fluctuations!

Doubling the amount of Minor Demons had somehow caused the fighting intensity inside the third Demon Mixer to quadruple or more!

Veronica actually feared that the demimech could not hold on for long under all of this

pressure.

She did not dare to leave it out of her sight. She maintained a certain degree of vigilance towards the third Demon Mixer and was ready to step in and contain the Minor Demons

that might be able to break free.

"Continue."

The fourth Demon Mixer soon became host of just 40 Minor Demons.

That was not all, though. Helena plucked around 10,000 souls taken from humans that

had died in the Yeina Star Cluster in the past day.

She then tried to inject them into the fourth Demon Mixer!

Helena maintained a high degree of control over the weak and uncorrupted souls. They

were much easier to handle as they did not come from stronger humans. Since these souls never went through the process of demonization, they were less 'real' and 'substantial' in a metaphysical sense. This meant that a seemingly impossible feat of stuffing 10,000 of them in a single Demon Mixer actually became possible!

Veronica knew that there was little chance that something as outrageous as this could happen for humans who had reached the first or second major cultivation rank. They may look indistinguishable from ordinary mortals in a physical sense, but they were much further apart in terms of spirituality!

Ordinary mortals were simply too weak, so Veronica was confident that they could be handled in bulk without generating any problems.

Once the fourth Demon Mixer became host to 20 Minor Demons and 10,000

uncorrupted souls!

Unlike the other Demon Mixers, the fourth one did not immediately generate strong

fluctuations.

"The Minor Demons... aren't fighting against each other yet." Veronica made an educated

guess. "They are hunting down and devouring all of the souls in their range. That makes

sense as they are predators who will hunt down their natural prey before ever thinking about turning against each other."

This feast would probably take a long time to complete, so Veronica instructed her

eldest sister to fill up the final Demon Mixer.

With 40 Minor Demons and 100,000 ordinary souls stuffed inside a single jar, the fifth Demon Mixer seemingly became even more still!

Those lucky Minor Demons could easily devour as many souls as they wanted! Even with double the amount of Minor Demons as before, it would probably take a long

time for them to completely devour all of the ordinary souls!

Once these Minor Demons all gained a lot of strength due to fulfilling their core purpose

and absorbing the nutrients from all of the souls, they should definitely grow stronger

than before!

That meant that if they were finally ready to turn their hostility towards their own kind, their fights would definitely become a lot more destructive than before. There was a not-so-insignificant chance that the fifth Demon Mixer might not be able to

take it anymore and explode! "Hopefully that won't happen."