When Ves was about to embark on his experiment, he laid his body down on a comfortable operating platform.

The chamber he was in was well-lit and completely cleared of any bugs and monitoring equipment. He and his guards had already swept the entire lab beforehand to make sure that no one would be able to hear him scream or something.

Just to be sure, Ves even took the initiative to disconnect communication lines and isolate wireless connections. This wasn't as difficult and time-consuming as it sounded as the private lab was already configured with confidentiality in mind.

It seemed that the previous owners of the Dragon's Den were quite meticulous about this aspect. They had to be in order to perform illegal experiments without alerting the authorities.

Ves briefly wondered how they got caught when their precautions were already so thorough. He could only conclude that they had probably been ratted out by a traitor who they mistakenly trusted.

This guess caused him to feel even more justified in his decision to put his trust in Ranya and no one else. He already had a good judgement of her character. Ves was her greatest patron and the only person who supported her as the director of the Larkinson Biotech Institute.

She stood to lose all of these benefits if she acted against Ves in any way. A rational person would never screw up such a fantastic deal!

"Everything is green, sir. I will continue to monitor your life signs and refrain from intervening unless they spike. You can proceed at any time."

"Then I will do so right away." Ves said as he continued to lay flat on the platform.

He had already placed the P-stones containing all of his ingredients a short distance to his left.

With his spiritual capabilities, he did not have to reach out and pick them all up in order to proceed with the first phase of his creation process.

He simply formed a spiritual projection and yanked out the spiritual ingredients from their containers one by one.

In order to prevent them from decaying or floating away, he rapidly stuffed them all into his own mind.

This was a very rash action to make. The insertion of even a single foreign element in his mind without performing any adjustments had the potential to cause a lot of upheaval in his head, but the disturbances in his mind were not as bad as he feared.

He grinned. "All that time spent on attuning with these ingredients paid off. They're behaving quite well."

Everything that consisted of spirituality was alive in some way. Even if the fragments did not exhibit much activity, it was still helpful for him to befriend them. This not only caused him to get used to their presence, but the respective ingredients also did not react with hostility when put into his mind.

Of course, that didn't mean it was healthy to have all of these ingredients floating around. They were still foreign elements, and unlike Gloriana's spiritual fragment, their attributes and roles were too dissimilar. He had to process them as soon as possible in order to forestall any compatibility issues.

"I'm beginning the critical process now!" He loudly announced for Ranya's sake. "Once I take this step, I will have passed the point of no return. I will have to direct all of my concentration to directing the process that I have started, so I won't be able to pay any attention to outside matters. Don't try to pull me out unless the situation has grown too dire."

"Understood. Good luck, sir. I hope you succeed."

"Thanks. If this procedure goes well, I may start rewarding companion spirits to other clansmen. If you do a good job, then you are also eligible to receive this boon."

This was definitely a great opportunity for anyone! Since Ketis managed to transform her entire life with the help of Sharpie, then many other people might be able to elevate themselves with the help of a companion spirit.

Ves did not pay any more attention to Ranya. He instead concentrated his mind and began to ready his spiritual hammer.

"Shatter!"

He violently slammed his ingredients in quick succession, causing them to lose so much integrity that they split into many smaller shards!

While many of these loose elements started to fling in different directions, Ves devoted enough concentration to keep them all contained. He did not want some of these pieces to escape his attention and lodge into an obscure part of his mind. Who knew what they would do once these foreign elements settled in for the long haul.

After shattering all of his ingredients, he began to push them together in order to merge every piece with other compatible pieces.

This time, he had a solid structure in mind. All of the planning and preparation he did beforehand instantly came to mind.

As he proceeded to perform this familiar task, he paid close attention to a couple of factors.

First, the shape of the living spiritual construct had to conform to a specific shape. In this case, Ves chose the form of a cat.

Whereas Ketis was happy with settling for a companion spirit that resembled her greatsword, Ves preferred to share his mind with a more adorable presence.

He already had a bunch of cats in his life, but there was never a situation where he had too many of them. He still missed the times when he was surrounded by clever cats on Felixia.

His progress wasn't fast. Even though he knew that time was critical, his work was slower than usual because he had become a lot more selective on which kind of shard he chose to merge with another shard.

Instead of mixing everything together on a random basis so that he would end up with a spiritual construct that was internally balanced, he wanted to create local imbalances that would hopefully produce specific effects.

For example, he specifically sought to merge as many shards of Lufa with shards of the Unending One.

This was quite difficult as their attributes actually repelled each other to a degree. Ves had to press them together and force them to play nice with each other.

While this was not an ideal situation, Ves believed in his theories. It made a lot of sense to put the shards from these two ingredients together.

One of them was responsible for establishing the crucial energy generator. The other took care of the supply of input materials.

On another level, Lufa's light and positive attributes effectively canceled out the Unending One's dark and negative attributes.

If Ves did not use elements of Lufa to suppress the undesirable elements of the Unending One, then Ves was quite afraid that the latter might claw his way back from the dead!

Fortunately, there was no sign of that as the process went on. The shards of the Unending One did not exhibit any strong fluctuations that might suggest that his worst fears might come true.

"Phew. Let's continue."

He merged shards of Aisling Curver's design seed with the shards of the Golden Cat. Both of them possessed strong associations with networks, so Ves hoped that he could amplify this trait if he combined them together in his upcoming companion spirit.

The only ingredient that did not pair exceptionally well with any ingredient was the shards of the Illustrious One. Ves merely merged them across the entire body of his spiritual companion. He did not set out to achieve anything specific with them, but was willing to take a chance that something might come good out of this, though it was hard for him to predict the final result.

"I can't foresee every detail, especially since this seed will grow once it comes to life."

He infused his own spiritual energy and bits of universal life energy into the shards and growing amalgamations whenever possible. He relied a bit more on the former than the latter. He was saving up the latter for a later phase.

Slowly but surely, his companion spirit took shape. The intangible form of a brand new cat took shape in his mind. The more his future companion spirit gained definition, the more Ves developed an affection for it. If all went well, he would be spending the rest of his life with this animated and semi-independent construct!

Of course, compared to Sharpie's current condition, the companion spirit that took shape in his mind was a lot weaker. This was fine to him as his highest priority was to form a solid foundation.

Minutes passed as Ves continued to lie on the treatment platform. Standing inside an adjacent observation room, Dr. Ranya nervously inspected all of the readings for anything unusual.

"His brain activity is continuing to increase." She whispered. "I hope it slows down. I don't know whether I have to intervene if his head keeps accumulating pressure."

Ves was ignorant of her worries. After a lot of diligent effort, he had finally completed the most crucial phase of his creation process!

The prototypical shape of his companion spirit had finally reached completion! As the life that Ves had infused in his new spiritual product started to take effect, the new cat finally opened his blazing bright eyes!

Mrow!

From the moment his spiritual cat truly came to life, a small shockwave emanated from his mind.

Ves was amazed at what he managed to create. He had created numerous spiritual products throughout his career, but this was the first time he explicitly used a portion of his own strength to create a living extension of himself.

The difference this made was palpable. His new spiritual companion clearly possessed a mind of his own, but he was also an inseparable part of his own Spirituality.

He took a moment of time to behold the initial form of his new companion spirit.

Though his appearance didn't make it obvious, his new cat felt unquestionably male. This was a deliberate choice as Ves did not want to deal with Gloriana's nonsense if she found out about his new cat.

His new creation's appearance looked a bit strange, though. In his spiritual perception, he sensed that the newborn kitty exuded a shimmering purple vibe.

Not only that, but shining sparkles of light flowed across his entire body. This strange light show reminded him of the random flashes that constantly flowed across the Illustrious One's body.

Just as with the luminar design spirit, the unexplainable light flashes added a lot of mystique to his new pet!

As the newborn cat managed to get a better sense of his own identity, he expressed a feeling of desire and expectation towards his creator.

"Clever boy." Ves. "You already know what comes next, do you? Well, before I proceed, let me name you first."

Throughout the past three weeks, Ves came up with several possible names. From Leo to Aslan, each of these possible choices sounded elegant or grand.

Yet from the moment he created his companion spirit piece by piece and built him up to his current form, all of those suggestions flew out of his ears.

They didn't fit with the close and intimate sentiment he was feeling towards this animated piece of himself. He felt so much love and affection for his new cat that he spontaneously came up with a different name.

"From now on, you are Blinky, the Star Cat."

Mrow~!

Blinky eagerly accepted his new moniker. Since the newly-named cat was a part of Ves from the beginning, it was natural that he shared many of the same tastes and preferences.

As much as he would like to bond further with Blinky, Ves still had one more step to complete.

"Are you ready for your power-up, my cute pet?"

Mrow mrow mrow!

"Then get ready, because this will not be easy for you. Absorb as much as you can!"

After checking that Blinky was okay so far, Ves decisively channeled large quantities of universal life energy into his newborn creation.

MROW!

Though Blinky immediately began to suffer as his body rapidly grew from absorbing so much highly-concentrated life energy at the time, he still managed to keep himself together. Many portions of his spiritual body expanded according to a preset plan that Ves had already prepared beforehand.

"So far, so good." Ves muttered as nothing seemed to go amiss.

However, it was at this time that he encountered the first true accident of the entire procedure.

Blinky's bright and luminescent eyes suddenly turned dark. The purple shimmer across his spiritual body rapidly began to darken as something ominous expanded from within.

Ves cut down the energy transfer as he reacted in shock at what was happening. In the end, no matter how many precautions he took, the worst had finally come to pass.

"Unending One! So you really did manage to claw your way back to life!"

Blinky's corrupted body released a flare of dark energy that instantly caused Ves to feel a spike of pain in his head.

"Ahh! Goddamnit!"