The Mech Touch

A lot of time went by as Ves and Ketis fell into a quiet routine. Each day, they commuted to the mech workshop and worked on the design.

If Ves had to estimate their relative contribution to the mech design, then he was responsible for about ninety percent of the design while Ketis took care of just ten percent.

Ketis didn't bear that much responsibility. She mainly spent her efforts on assisting in the design of the heavy saber, weapon arm and artificial musculature. She also helped design the overall body shape of the hero mech in order to make sure it could leverage as much mechanical power as possible to assist in its melee attacks.

Due to her inexperience and relative lack of knowledge, she worked a lot slower than Ves. Stil, the large amount of practical insight she lent to the design project owing to her in-depth mastery of swordsmanship was enough to elevate her to the status of contributing designer.

Just because Ves was a Journeyman didn't mean that a Novice like Ketis played no role. Any mech designer could offer valuable contributions as long as their specialty covered an area in which he hadn't paid too much attention.

At her current stage, Ketis couldn't express her design philosophy in an extraordinary fashion. What little influence she imprinted onto the Transcendent Messenger design was so miniscule that Ves would have to use a spiritual microscope to sense.

"That will probably change in the future." He muttered.

His collaboration with Professor Ventag already showed him the potential of working together with stronger mech designers. As long as their design philosophies didn't clash or occupy the same ground, they could compliment or in some cases even synergize with each other!

This especially seemed to be the case with a design philosophy that encompassed a single aspect of an entire mech. Mech designers like Ves possessed a rare advantage in that he could collaborate with nearly every other mech designer.

The only instance where he couldn't do so is if he encountered a mech designer who also specialized in X-Factor and spirituality!

Of course, those were concerns for the future. Right now, Ves took responsibility for the bulk of the design work on the Transcendent Messenger.

"Working on a hero mech is a whole new dimension."

While he already possessed prior design experience with hero mechs, the Ouroboros was a very different beast compared to the Transcendent Messenger.

Not only did he design the Ouroboros in a day with the help of an auto designer system, but he also made ample use of Terran high technology. Any first-class mech could still defeat hundreds of Transcendent Messenger without breaking a sweat!

Ves felt as if he had fallen from heaven after having a taste of Terran design principles. The premium, third-class mech parts he selected may enjoy a lot of regard in the Bright Republic and Ylvaine Protectorate, but they were worse than trash in a first-rate superstate!

Each part was at least three times bigger but performed at least ten or a hundred times worse! The vast discrepancy in power and capability rudely dragged Ves into the realities of third-class mech design.

Inferior technology, inferior materials, inferior fabrication methods, inferior mech pilots and inferior mech designers all resulted in mechs that seemed like toys compared to the apex war machines of the Terran Confederation.

He sighed. "I'm suffering from tech envy again."

He learned a lot from his latest Mastery experience, but reminiscing about all the advanced tech he witnessed only fueled his tech envy.

Just like after he returned from the Starlight Megalodon, Ves had to adjust his mindset and forget about most of the wondrous tech he came in touch with. Only by letting go was he able to liberate himself from the poisonous influence of tech envy and concentrate on making the Transcendent Messenger the best hero mech he could design at this time.

Once he embarked on designing a hero mech without the use of a cheat-like auto designer system, Ves experienced first-hand the enormous challenges of incorporating two completely different weapon systems on a single mech.

Fortunately, his prior experience with designing hybrid knights prevented him from getting lost.

"The key to mechs with multiple weapon systems is their internal architecture." Ves lectured to Ketis at the start. "We've selected a lot of great parts, but it's going to be a challenge to stuff them together in a mech frame that only offers a limited amount of space. A good internal architecture design will be able to encompass more parts with the least amount of channels and internal support structures."

This was far harder to do with mechs that employed multiple systems. Ves felt constrained by the limited internal volume at his disposal.

If that wasn't enough, he also struggled with the inherent asymmetrical nature of his hero mech design. A mech that wielded a saber with one arm and a ballistic rifle with the other arm would always be skewed.

This problem needed to be addressed in a comprehensive fashion when he designed the internal architecture of his mech.

The simplest way to describe his solution would be to say that he fought asymmetry with asymmetry.

Was there too much mass slanted towards the saber side of the mech? Then Ves would just place more heavy structures towards the rifle side of the mech.

Although this sounded simple, the actual solutions were extremely complex because Ves seemingly juggled more than a hundred parameters at the same time!

If Ves was still an Apprentice, then he doubted that he could do a good job by himself. The amount of calculations he needed to perform and the intricate, interconnected trade offs he needed to make were too much for any mortal to bear.

"It's a good thing I'm no longer constrained by human limitations."

His superhuman mental attributes and his optimized genes already helped him bear the burden he placed on his shoulders.

However, what was new was the influence of his design seed. Ves already knew that its presence holistically boosted his mech design capabilities. Yet only until he worked without an auto designer did he realize its potential.

His design seed acted like an internal auto designer in some ways. It accelerated his calculations, provided frequent heuristic shortcuts and strengthened his intuition for mech design.

While his design seed wasn't as capable as an auto designer, it didn't feel like an external aid. The design seed originally came from Ves, and it always possessed a strong connection to his mind.

Perhaps the best way to regard the design seed was that it carved out a significant portion of his Spirituality and specialized it towards mech design.

While the effects hadn't reached the potency of the auto designer he used, its reach was incredibly wide. It enhanced a lot more processes, some of which were very vague and esoteric.

No matter how closely he observed the workings of his design seed, Ves never believed he uncovered all of its depths.

Ves scratched his chin. "It's more than an internal auto designer."

Perhaps his upcoming visit to the MTA's sector headquarters might shed some light on this area. Ves doubted that the MTA was ignorant to the existence of the design seed, even if they could only observe its workings indirectly.

"No matter what exactly is going on here, there's no question that it's beneficial towards my manual design work!"

It was hard to estimate how much help it provided, but Ves roughly determined that his effective productivity practically doubled! He got twice as much work done than before he advanced!

All of his worries about not being able to complete his design in time faded away. The speed in which he shredded through various design problems astounded him again and again. It reminded him again of the instance where he designed the Ouroboros with the help of Axelar's auto designer.

A guess cropped up in his mind. "Perhaps.. the auto designer is modeled after the design seed."

This was a rather disconcerting implication. If his guess was right, someone wanted to imitate the functioning of a design seed!

The ultimate goal of developing the auto designer was to automate the work that high-ranking mech designers currently performed!

Although this goal posed a huge threat to his profession, Ves merely scoffed at the thought. With his deeper insight into how spirituality tied with mech design, no artificial system would ever be able to encapsulate the complete functions of a design seed.

For now, mech designers should be able to breathe easily.

He turned his attention back to the Transcendent Messenger and continued to build it up along the lines of his vision.

Ylvaine's spiritual fragment played a substantial role in guiding his design choices as well. It had grown increasingly smarter over time. Ves noted that while the fragment initially knew nothing about mechs, it gained a good understanding of what they represented after constantly observing Ves engaging in his work.

While it didn't assist him in improving his design work like his design seed, the fragment nonetheless offered occasional guidance on the look and feel of the mech.

The fragment played an especially substantial role when Ves completed the basic layout of exterior of his hero mech and began to add Ylvainan touches to its appearance.

"The Ylvainans love turning their mechs into moving bastions of faith."

That didn't mean they liked to turn their mechs into walking churches. Having engaged in this custom for several centuries, the Ylvainans managed to come up with various different ways to make their mechs express their faith.

For his hero mech, Ves decided to keep it relatively simple and went for a holy paladin look. The hero mechs he designed were meant to be ceremonial bodyguard mechs. They needed to look impressive and capable so that their presence deterred any trouble before it even started.

"They also need to be able to attract attention in a way that enhances the stature of Madame Cecily."

These were very complex priorities. However, together with Ylvaine's spiritual fragment, Ves managed to make the Transcendent Messenger look as if it carried a holy mission to protect its charge and spread Ylvaine's gospel at the same time.

"It truly looks like a holy warrior." Ves smiled in satisfaction.

He added a couple of distinctive visual flairs to the design. First, he draped a white tabard over the torso of the Transcendent Messenger. This was a purely cosmetic addition that strongly harkened back to the ancient knight orders of Old Earth.

The cloth consisted of a sophisticated composite material that was extremely resistant to dirt and routine wear and tear.

"Well, if it gets damaged somehow, it's not a big deal to replace it with another one." Ves shrugged.

Ves depicted a couple of sigils and heraldry on the front of the white tabard. The main sigil represented Prophet Ylvaine, while the heraldry stood for the Protectors of the Faith and Madame Cecily Curin.

After finishing the visual design, Ves took a step back and regarded its appearance. "I feel like I'm missing something here."

It came to him after a short moment of thought. "I forgot about the particle generator!"

Ves quickly fitted in the Rescue Particle Generator to the design. It was the only component license he made use of that he didn't borrow from the Ylvainans.

In order to enhance the holy quality of the Transcendent Messenger without overdoing it, Ves decided to place tiny modules all over the frame of the mech. From the bottom of its feet to the top of its head, the mech was riddled with tiny Rescue Particle Generators that hardly took up any space.

When activated, they surrounded the entire frame with glowing white particles that made it appear as if they were surrounded by an aura of pure holiness.

Together with the other aspects of its visual design, the Transcendent Messenger looked more resplendent in its expression of faith than the vast majority of Ylvainan mech designs in the market!

"It's practically a work of art!"