He struggled to absorb humanoid shapes. It took a lot of will to maintain a sober mind in the presence of a hyper material that was known to mess with minds!
Right now, the Mentalist Crystal that took a huge amount of money and effort to secure was not only making it difficult for Ves to maintain coherent thoughts.
However, more and more work assignments piled up that most people did not see anything wrong with this appearance.
The Mentalist Crystal actually did more than that. It began to affect the minds of nearby humans in an instant.
"What?! This crystal is acting out, and it is doing this all by itself!"
Ves suddenly realized that it was beginning to interact with everyone's rich thinking.
Their relative proximity to the Mentalist Crystal meant that as long as it was exposed to the public, it would definitely get robbed due to all of the confusion it generated!
Now that the Mentalist Crystal was acting up without any immediate cause, more and more people grew concerned.
Ves eventually found out that the Mentalist Crystal was beginning to absorb nearby energies and trying to make sense of it all even now!
"Is it alive?"
Ves couldn't answer this question.
What mattered was that there was something strange taking place. How was he supposed to process a Mentalist Crystal with exceedingly valuable properties!
As Ves struggled to get a grip on this volatile high-grade hyper, he suddenly developed a brilliant idea.
Instead of trying to suppress the Mentalist Crystal, Ves thought about letting it become active in a more controlled manner.
This altered the crystal's behavior and introduced a lot of new possibilities.
Ves began to think deeper on what he could do with this unexpected development.
He thought back on his conversation with Master Laila Devos.
She had good reason to believe that the Minerva Mark II would stand at the top of the ace mech classification.
That was because command mechs were inherently rare to begin with. High-ranking command mechs were so rare that each of them possessed their own separate identities.
It should be easier to turn the Minerva Mark II into an anchor mech when there was not much opposition from the beginning!
Ves concluded that a Mentalist Crystal could make a huge difference.
The problem was that he and the rest were not proficient in manipulating this mysterious and difficult object.
They had to learn on the fly if they wanted to have any hope of fully harnessing the power of the crystal.
Ves mostly relied on Blinky to analyse the Mentalist Crystal at first.
That was when an accident occurred.
The Mentalist Crystal abruptly absorbed the companion spirit among the captives!
This immediately caused Blinky a considerable amount of distress!
Fortunately, the Mentalist Crystal did not pose a threat against what it had just absorbed.
When Blinky experimentally started to flex his power, he found that the Mentalist Crystal seemingly opened a portal to a completely different place, among many other powers.
Mentalist Crystals just became a lot more interesting!
With the help of smart AIs, Ves was quickly able to organize all of the data. They also remained watchful for any sign of trouble from the Mentalist Crystal.
"I am getting closer to figuring out another application of a Mentalist Crystal." Ves told his wife during a brief break.
"Oh? What ideas do you have, sir?"
"Hmmm…" Ves frowned in thought. "My ideas are not mature yet. Give me more time to devise actual solutions."
The SF-02 also needed time to calculate different solutions. The more data at Ves' disposal, the more he could figure out what happened during the crucial ambush.
Whatever the case, Ves believed that as long as he discovered and implemented alternate means of defense, they would trickle down and benefit many other people!
"What are Mentalist Crystals, exactly?"
Ves did not know why he was asking himself this question, but he felt that the answer could help him develop better applications.
The lack of information was frustrating him! He knew too little about Mentalist Crystals.
Just standing close to one already amplified all of his emotions to an extent.
"I think they are crystallized brain cells." Gloriana guessed. "They are parts of the mind of an organism that has reached a form of transcendence. From this viewpoint, using a Mentalist Crystal may be asking for help from the source of all of the suffering and misery."
This was a rather bold idea!
A Mentalist Crystal might contain hidden memories and various secret information.
Nobody knew about it because they were never taught to access it in a strange manner.
If Gloriana's theory was right, then Ves might be able to find a way to access those memories!
Ves sent Blinky into the Mentalist Crystal again and tried to rummage inside for anything interesting.
However, his companion spirit faced a lot of resistance inside the Mentalist Crystal.
It was as if its own defenders rose up to expel all intruders!
Whether they were human or alien did not seem important.
"Have you made any progress, Ves?"
"I am getting closer. I am picking up more and more clues with the help of Blinky. I need to conduct a few more experiments before I can issue a verdict."