The Mech Touch

Ves did not like other mech designers meddling into his projects.

Sure, he was not against cooperating with other mech designers. The important point was that he agreed to it. He gladly collaborated with Gloriana due to the fantastic synergy they achieved. That did not mean he was in favor of getting help from others, especially when he didn't have a say in the matter!

Fortunately, the violation this time was light. As Ves carefully studied the latest iteration of the Valkyrie Redeemer design, he clearly noted traces that resembled Gloriana's design style but not entirely.

He knew how his partner designed her mechs. She was ambitious but also exceedingly perfectionist. She constantly struggled to balance her urges, and sometimes she failed, much to her chagrin.

What was odd about the current design was that Ves no longer spotted any of these quirks. All of the areas that were usually prone to suboptimal solutions looked suspiciously polished in his eyes.

Every mech designer possessed a different style. Even the blandest design style still stood out in some way.

To Ves, the Valkyrie Redeemer was like a glass of water with a few extra fingerprints on its surface. It was still a glass of water, but who knew who already took a sip at it while he was looking away.

"Well, at least the meddlers didn't try to change anything substantial."

The overall character and performance profile of the Valkyrie Redeemer remained unchanged. It was just a little bit better at performing its purpose due to the additional optimization it received.

Ves could easily guess why that was so. "The Hexer Masters probably didn't hold themselves back out of the goodness of their hearts. They're just afraid they'll ruin the glow of the mech."

Without his intervention or guidance, anyone who implemented major changes to the design quickly tarnished its spiritual foundation.

He had to spend a lot of effort in instructing Gloriana to keep her mind focused and free of distractions in order to minimize the impact, and even then she still muddled up the spiritual foundation sometimes.

The problem was so much worse for stronger mech designers who exerted a disproportionately powerful impact on any design they worked on! With the strength of a Master, they could easily wipe out the glow of a mech entirely if they invested themselves in a design!

This was actually one of the hidden reasons why there were no good variants of LMC mechs. The mech designers who were best positioned to develop them were also the most likely to ruin their spiritual nature!

Considering that the Hex Army just happened to be the client, Ves did not begrudge the Hexers too much. The quality of the Valkyrie Redeemer design directly impacted the lives of their mech pilots and many other citizens.

A 5 percent difference in performance might sound minor, but this margin might prevent the Hexers from losing tens of thousands of mech pilots over the course of the Komodo War!

"One of the fundamental flaws of this commision is that we didn't account for the increase in scope. The mechs I've promised to the Hexers are too important to be left in the hands of two Journeymen."

There was too much at stake in a war that affected an entire star sector. The fate of trillions of lives and a large amount of states hung in the balance. This was why the works of Master Mech Designers dominated the rosters of mech militaries.

States wanted to fight with the best machines that they could get! Why settle for the rough and immature designs of Journeymen when they could easily obtain something better from Masters?

The oddity here was that neither Ves nor DIVA anticipated that the Hegemony as a whole embraced the Blessed Squire so quickly.

In his discussions with Calabast, she often brought up the intense bias towards mechs designed by boys.

The notoriously strict and female-centric council of matriarchs literally burned any applications sent by boys without even taking a glance at them! To the matriarchs, the moment Hexadric Hegemony resorted to mechs designed by boys, their state had already fallen!

Ves snorted in disgust. "It turns out you're not so principled after all. I guess reality sometimes has a way of whacking some sense in fanatics."

The actual Hexers fighting against the Fridaymen in the trenches did not care as much for ideological purity. They just wanted effective solutions, and a pair of Journeymen just happened to meet their demands.

With his glows, Ves possessed a unique advantage that the Hexers weren't able to assail. This gave the Hexer leaders little choice but to make an exception to the rules.

A part of him admired the burst of pragmatism from the Hexers. As long as they weren't unreasonable to the point of absurdity, Ves did not have too many qualms of working for them. An honest mech designer and businessman should always uphold his end of a deal.

"I have principles, after all."

As Ves continued to study and work on the Valkyrie Redeemer design, he became increasingly more eager to see it in action.

Different from the Blessed Squire, the Valkyrie Redeemer was a female-centric mech design. Its budget was double that of the Blessed Squire despite being considerably lighter and smaller. Every square meter of mech was packed with advanced components and exceptional alloys.

Armed with a short spear, hexagon-shaped shield and pulse submachine gun, the aerial marauder mech possessed a versatile loadout that was tailor-made for independent raiding and harassment missions.

The Valkyrie Redeemer was arguably the most powerful and most impactful mech he had designed up until now! Certainly, the Devil Tiger and the Ouroborus were vastly more expensive and exceptional, but they were outliers as far as he was concerned.

Unlike those one-off mechs, the Valkyrie Redeemer was a standard military mech design that was likely to be used by millions of highly-trained military mech pilots. The women who were slated to pilot it would probably go on to achieve great victories that they couldn't have achieved with any other machine.

Ves briefly felt burdened by the sheer amount of influence of this mech design. A lot of people were paying attention to his next entry into the Komodo War. If the Valkyrie Redeemer somehow fell flat, then not only would he lose a huge amount of reputation, but he might indirectly contribute to the additional deaths and suffering of many Hexers!

"Why am I so nervous? I've always shouldered this burden ever since I sold my first Marc Antony."

The biggest difference was that the scope had increased. The influence of a single, cheap variant was countless times less than a new military mech model that might decide whether the Hex Army succeeded in overrunning the Carnegie Group!

"Well, I can only do what I can. Let's finalize this mech design."

He already added two triggered abilities to the design. They were the defining traits of the Valkyrie Redeemer and would likely become synonymous with the design.

Considering that he designed the abilities before he made some major advances in the field of spiritual engineering, he saw plenty of room for improvements. He resolutely broke up the spiritual constructs that carried the abilities and rebuilt them from the ground up with several advancements in mind.

He first tackled the Shock Pulse ability that was designed to work in tandem with Valkyrie Redeemer's Starburst grenades. Inspired by the rapid emotional disorientation induced by the new Doom Guards, he added strong emotional components to the pulsing discharge.

"Hehehe." He chuckled. "It's not enough to shock the enemy's minds and spirits. I want them to be awed as well so that they will worship the valkyries as they die!"

He always enjoyed developing more creative ways to kill. The entire point of designing mechs, especially those purposed for the military, was to increase their lethality to the limit!

By adding an awe effect that was closely related to the Superior Mother, the new Shock Pulse became even more difficult to shrug off. The Blessed Squire's performance on the battlefield already proved that even elite Fridaymen mech pilots weren't immune to the disruption that emotional changes could bring.

"They're still human underneath their fearsome shells."

Considering the alterations he made, he might as well adjust the name of the ability to Shock And Awe Pulse.

"It's quite a good combination! No wonder it's a classic!"

The changes he made to the short-ranged triggered ability paled in comparison to what he did next.

The Marked For Death ability drastically narrowed the angle of the glow so that it was effectively able to affect a distant target.

As Ves broke down and rebuilt the spiritual construct responsible for this ability, he integrated the functionality of the retraction dial into it. This allowed the mech pilot to selectively reduce the range in order to affect multiple opponents with its suppressive glow.

He also tweaked the death-based glow in order to increase its effectiveness at inducing terror.

Nyxie along with the dark gods of the Nyxian Gap had taught him plenty about suppressing people through spiritual means. While he wasn't able to replicate their methods entirely, he was able to imitate a small portion of their effects.

The final change he made to the ability was that the Valkyrie Redeemers could pool and superimpose their targeted glows more effectively.

When it came to glows, 1 + 1 did not equal 2. Most of the time, the strengthening resulting from overlapping glows mostly led to a modest increase such as 1.05.

What Ves had done was to introduce some slight variance to the individual glow signature of every unique mech.

Because each Valkyrie Redeemer exerted a slightly different glow, Ves theorized that overlapping them together might be able to induce vastly greater emotional turmoil towards the targets!

"It's boring when everything is the same. Just making every little glow a little more unique will doubtlessly add some excitement!"

He was very proud when he came up with this little trick. While he hadn't tested it out, he was certain it would work out the way he envisioned. If he happened to be wrong, he could always correct the mech design.

"Unlike other mech designers, I don't need to go through any approval process to alter my mechs!"

It only took hours for him to upgrade the abilities. Just as before, the two triggered abilities were also alive. Infused with a small amount of his spiritual energy, they were capable of growing and evolving over time, though in what way, even Ves didn't know!

In theory, the triggered abilities evolved according to the wants and needs of the mech, the design spirit and the mech pilot.

If they wanted to increase the range of the Marked For Death ability, then the spiritual construct responsible for it would aim for this improvement at the expense of other possible choices.

If a lot of Hexer mech pilots wanted to abuse the Shock And Awe ability even further, then the Shock And Awe ability would likely experience greater growth.

"Resources are limited. Not everything can be improved at once."

After he was done with revising the triggered abilities, he directed his attention to the other spiritual aspects of his mech design. He smoothed out anything that looked sloppy and built up and added some additional elements that strengthened the Valkyrie Redeemer's spiritual character.

In particular, he made sure to set it up for individual growth and development. While Ves wasn't willing to set up any mechanisms that induced the Superior Mother to invest some of her energy to enhance the spiritual foundations of the mechs, he did open up a door for other sources.

"If the mech pilot can pay the price herself, then by all means do it! Just don't ask for a handout from my mother!"

Inspired by the changes to the Quint, any mech pilot who advanced to expert candidate or expert pilot was able to enhance their individual Valkyrie Redeemers.

While Ves risked exposure when he implemented this quirk, he couldn't resist adding it in once he conceived of the idea.

He really wanted to develop methods of enhancing his mechs without relying on himself or his design spirits to make a move. By implementing a secret auto-enhancement function, Ves hoped that this solution might be able to deflect some suspicion in the future!