[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 366: New Development

The departure of the ghost that pretended to be his mother left Ves in a morose mood. His ambivalence towards her identity deepened with each subsequent meeting.

Even with his superhuman Intelligence, he still couldn't determine whether the ghost spoke the truth. She moved exactly like he remembered from his childhood, but her attitude had turned ten times worse. Even though she helped him out, she wrapped up her benevolence with thorns.

Her unilateral appropriation of the crystal leader's corpse particularly set back his future plans. Without a live sample to of crystals to study, Ves wouldn't be able to delve into its secrets and progress his understanding of the alien technology. Even though he took plenty of scans, they only offered a finite amount of data.

"Scans won't be able to substitute for the real thing."

More disturbing than his mother's lack of sensitivity regarding the ownership of his property, she also showed competence in areas which she shouldn't know.

"It's like she's some sort of highly-trained soldier or mech pilot."

As far as Ves was aware of, his mother lived a completely normal life. Ves inherited a small portion of his artistic sense from her. In her spare time, she enthusiastically played with recorders and snapped a lot of images of their family. She made a small business out of recorded some of the weddings in Freslin.

Even though a couple of recorder bots and some automated software could do the job, they would never be able to convey the emotional impact if a human stood at the helm. His mother truly stood out in that area.

"My mother spent her lifetime developing those skills. It's impossible for her to be good at fighting."

Ves came up with three different answers to this discrepancy. Either she gained a lot of new skills after her death, or she was never the person she pretended to be when she still lived.

As for the final answer, the ghost used to be someone else, but for some reason or another assumed his mother's identity.

"This is far too complicated."

He could speculate all day, but from the evidence at hand, he failed to make up his mind. If the ghost assumed any other identity, then he may have been able to look at this conundrum in an objective manner.

Yet when it came to his mother, his judgement became clouded with emotion. He was not a bot who could strictly look at a situation and spit out a yes or no. Bots had the luxury of ignoring everything that fell out of their consideration.

Ves enjoyed no such luxury.

"At least she didn't suck out the life of me this time."

He faintly sensed that she became more formidable each time she paid a visit to him. Previously, she seemed more primal and ephemeral, as if she was one step away from oblivion. Now, she behaved much like a living human being, as if she had truly been resurrected from the grave.

Obviously, the ghost constantly sought to strengthen herself. Otherwise she wouldn't go through the trouble of stealing his high-grade Rorach's Bone and his crystal artifact.

"Even if we're related, that's no reason for taking away my stuff!"

Sadly, the ghost was nowhere to be found. She came and went according to her own whims. Even if she hovered right next to him, as long as she exerted her utmost in hiding her presence, Ves wouldn't know he was being spied upon.

His glowering mood turned even gloomier at that realization. The only reason why he didn't panic was because his mother wouldn't expose his secrets to anyone else.