The Mech Touch

"Mrow mrow..."

"Maaoow. Maow-"

"Nyaaaaaaaa-"

Blinky's purple form shook in uncertainty as profound changes took place within his internal universe.

The round globe projected on his intangible body squirmed as large structures appeared on a part of its surface.

In order to soothe his discomfort, both Alexandria and the Golden Cat had appeared to keep him company and to intervene if necessary.

Fortunately, there was no need for the red and golden spiritual cats to make any moves.

Ves and Blinky were able to exert enough control over the Blinkyverse to transform part of the landscape of the primordial planet into crude, giant and incredibly simplistic transistors.

It had taken far more time and effort to develop these simple devices than Ves expected!

Physics didn't quite work right inside the Blinkyverse.

Every universal constant such as the gravitational constant G and the Planck constant h were slightly different from the main universe!

Combined with other anomalies such as the apparent addition of brand-new laws of physics, it was impossible for Ves to directly translate the design of an ancient computing system and expect it to work in the Blinkyverse!

"Why are the rules inside your companion spirit's space so different!?" Gloriana asked in frustration!

She looked as if she was almost ready to tear her hair out! This kind of work did not have any direct relationship with mechs, but it still had major implications to the future of the Larkinson Clan.

None of their ambitions could proceed unless they figured out how to computerize a part of Blinky's cultivation!

This was why Ves and Gloriana expended several days on testing the rules of the Blinkyverse. They meticulously measured every universal constant utilizing tools and methods they had to improvise from scratch. This was incredibly troublesome and tedious work that nonetheless had to be done if Ves ever wanted to utilize his own internal universe to a greater extent.

Only after they managed to build a deviating physics model were they finally able to take the next step. Designing basic tools such as transistors and extremely primitive computing systems became possible again now that the pair were able to adapt their standard designs into ones that were adapted to the internal universe.

As Ves and Blinky concentrated on building up the new imaginary computing system, Gloriana frowned in thought as she studied the parameters of the physics model.

"Why is your Blinkyverse so abnormal?" She asked. "I do not understand why everything works differently inside. I cannot figure out the reason why the universal constants are different, and I understand even less why the abnormal new laws of physics that alter the interaction between forces have taken hold inside your internal space."

Ves smirked even as he made sure to focus most of his attention on his current work.

"It is not that difficult to understand. Many cultivation methods tend to make exaggerated and unrealistic claims. Even if there is a basis in truth in them, they can only be realized in the later stages. However, when it comes to the creation of an entirely new universe inside the bodies of practitioners, it is not as impossible as you think. Don't let Blinky's cute appearance and small size fool you. His internal universe has already reached a diameter of 200,000 kilometers. Can you imagine how much space that actually represents? Not even the oldest and most powerful ancient phase whales can reach this size!"

In that sense, Blinky's actual 'body' had reached such a titanic scale that he had probably grown into one of the largest cats to ever exist!

It was a pity that none of it consisted of physical matter. Blinky constantly absorbed a lot of E energy radiation in order to expand his internal space, but he had yet to master a method to convert energy into matter.

Learning that the universal constant and laws of physics were different in the Blinkyverse actually represented an important breakthrough in this effort.

Now that Ves figured out some of the barriers that prevented him from turning the intangible into the tangible, he had come one step closer into transforming parts of the Blinkyverse into a material realm!

His wife looked at Ves with astonishment. "Are you actually claiming that your Blinkyverse is a complete and independent universe that is comparable to the one we reside in? Does that mean that if you ever manage to cultivate it long enough, you can build up an entire cosmos of your own that is populated by its own life forms and constructs?"

Ves laughed. "Yes! Don't you understand? This is the power of cultivation! It is all about turning the impossible into the possible! That said, I don't dare to think of building anything extravagant like that in the short term. The energy requirements to expand the Blinkyverse will grow exponentially greater. It should be relatively easy to build up a star system, but it will take an awfully long time to build up an entire galaxy that is filled with billions of stars, let alone a galaxy cluster that is even more ridiculous in size. I suspect that the current level of exotic radiation is not concentrated enough to support Blinky's subsequent cultivation. Perhaps Blinky can only make further progress if we are able to move to Messier 87."

The Red Ocean had appeared in a medium energy environment that induced a lot of changes.

Both humans and aliens constantly discovered new phenomena that opened up all kinds of wondrous possibilities as a result.

However, many people who possessed enough awareness understood that the residents of the Red Ocean were just living off a miniscule proportion of the scraps thrown away by the supergiant galaxy that dominated this part of the cosmos!

Messier 87 constituted a proper high energy environment. The more Ves thought about how much more concentrated the power of heaven in that galaxy could be, the more he yearned to travel to this strange new environment and take advantage of all of the abundance!

So what if it was populated by a myriad of strange and powerful aliens?

A galaxy as large as this had to be populated by a huge amount of alien races, many of which fought and lived alongside each other for many eons!

Ves bet that the relations between the native aliens over there were varied and complex. It was unlikely that a single alien race had managed to gain total dominion over Messier 87.

So long as the special galaxy developed a pluralistic galactic community where a lot of different alien races could live alongside each other, it should be no problem for a bunch of humans to blend into the rich and diverse alien community!

Of course, this was all speculation. Ves had no proof that any of this was the case. Even if Messier 87 happened to be welcoming towards outside visitors, there was no way he could bridge the enormous distance. He also did not possess the strength to defend himself against bad actors.

Ves could only bury this burning ambition. At least one of his incarnations needed to become True God before he gained the capital to protect himself in a massive galaxy that was sure to be populated by many equivalent beings.

If he truly wanted to gain a foothold in a place as dangerous as Messier 87, then he must also bring along a few god pilots to be sure!

As the top combat cultivators produced by human civilization, god pilots should not be weak even when they entered the much bigger pond of Messier 87!

All of this took a lot of time. Ves estimated it would likely take a century if not two before he was ready to embark on a trip to Messier 87.

Other conditions had to be met as well. Red humanity had to persist. Ves and the champions of the Larkinson Clan needed to make successive breakthroughs. The Red Association or another power had to develop a practical means to travel to another nearby galaxy.

It was not entirely certain whether all of these difficult conditions could be met in the coming decades and centuries, so Ves did not dare to put too much hope in realizing this particular ambition.

"I understand now." Gloriana spoke as she began to connect different pieces of information again. "There is no rule that states that the laws of physics have to be identical for every universe. In fact, it may be the norm that they are all different from universe to universe. Is this why hazardous regions exist? It might explain why the Milky Way is riddled with them. Could it be that the origin of the Nyxian Gap is the release of an internal universe after the death of a powerful cultivator in ancient times?"

Her theories actually made a lot of sense! Ves thought about all of the weirdness that he had encountered in the Nyxian Gap. If he treated it as an internal universe that had gotten loose and merged with the current universe, then it made complete sense why the rules were still slightly different!

Ves rubbed his hairless chin in thought.

"It is quite troublesome to reinvent new stuff for the Blinkyverse, but I think that there are many advantages to gaining access to our own hazardous region. It should be possible to generate resources and create products that are otherwise impossible to make in our main universe. The type of specialty products that I can make will depend on the dominant traits and elements of the Blinkyverse. As far as I know, the internal space is particularly aligned towards space, energy and astrology."

Much of that had to do with the key reagents that Ves utilized to birth the Blinkyverse.

Ves managed to obtain the odd Urvenk Obelisk by drawing a radiant lottery ticket. The ancient relic used to be part of a grand mechanism used to move entire stars and planets. It complemented the Imaginary Universe Method extremely well and gave Blinky greater control over the stellar objects inside his growing space.

The 100 kilograms of phasewater that Ves invested in the creation of the Blinkyverse also strengthened anything related to space. It was one of the primary reasons why the internal space had grown so quickly despite not feeding it with E energy radiation for a long time.

All of these variables caused the Blinkyverse to turn into a universe where the forces related to energy, space and astrology gained so much primacy that they essentially rewrote the laws of physics!

To be honest, Ves and Gloriana had only scratched the surface of what they could do with all of those altered conditions. They had only worked to compensate for the many deviations.

The next step that they could take was to actively exploit the advantages created by the odd environment.

For example, Ves even speculated that it might be possible for the Blinkyverse to convert energy into phasewater without the need to steal any phase whale organs!

The research required to develop such a powerful mechanism was too much, though. Ves simply did not have the time to engage in this extravagant research project.

Turning a part of the Blinkyverse into a spiritual supercomputer might make it a little more viable, but Ves needed to deepen his understanding of phasewater theory to a much greater extent before he could do anything meaningful!

"Mrow mrow mrow!"

"Maow?!"

"Have you completed your work?!" Gloriana perked up again.

"I think so." Ves said. "Let me test it out. Please wait a moment."

Several seconds passed before Blinky opened his maw and spat out a trail of spiritual energy.

The trail split up into different sections that rapidly formed in a series of letters.

HELLY GALAXY.

"Congratulations, Ves. You have managed to build an intangible computer that can print out a single sentence." Gloriana smiled. "How much processing power have you gained?"

"Not much. One of Marvaine's toys is easily a trillion times more powerful. This is ancient technology, Gloriana. We still have a long way to go before we can recreate contemporary processing systems."