The Mech Touch

Though Patriarch Reginald exhibited a lot of desire towards prime abilities and the prime materials that made them possible, Ves quickly had to shoot down his excitement.

There simply weren't any prime materials available.

He possessed a limited quantity of P-stones and did not expect to obtain any more of them. This was because he theorized that they originally came from the Nyxian Gap, which was an entire galaxy away from the expeditionary fleet at the moment!

The same went for Unending alloy. A long time ago, an ancient alien race must have originally developed this artificial metal substance with spiritual sorcery in mind, but the method of making it was probably lost.

It was not as if Ves tried to break down samples of Unending alloy into their base materials in order to decipher the formula and produce more alloy by himself.

Whenever he did so, the mysterious exotics that were responsible for making Unending alloy work quickly broke down and lost their special traits.

This was not an unknown phenomenon in materials science and was largely the reason why recycling salvaged goods rarely recovered every raw material put into their construction.

The final material that Ves found was the sample of Galenta Bone that he had once encountered in Rion's private stash.

The material might not be as hard as Unending alloy, but it was tough enough to be employed in mechs.

Aside from its decent ability to store spiritual energy, it also had the effect of nurturing it as far as he was aware.

The galenta whale was a species of astral beasts that had almost been hunted to extinction in the Milky Way.

They were apparently more ubiquitous in the Red Ocean, so Ves hoped he could get his hands on the strange bone growths that grew inside the brains of the largest galente whales.

Unfortunately, his clan never managed to get their hands on any of the samples.

Ves had put Galenta Bone on the list of must-buy materials, but the clansmen responsible for procurement never managed to find any samples on the open market.

He suspected that Galenta Bones were treated as rare and exclusive trophies. If that was the case, then they should only ever change hands in private auctions.

Only the upper echelon were invited to these events, and Ves was far from reaching that level.

This was bad news to Patriarch Reginald. The lack of resonating materials was the only barrier to turning the Mars into a prime mech.

While he could have requested the Larkinsons to repurpose the Unending alloy that adorned their existing expert mechs, he would never do so. This was a line too far and crossing it would seriously deteriorate the relationship between the two alliance partners.

As an expert pilot himself, he knew how much his Larkinson counterparts valued and cared for their expert mechs. He might be greedy for prime materials, but he would not ask his allies and fellow comrades in battle to mutilate their strongest assets.

That left the Cross Patriarch with no other option than hoping that he could get his hands on Galenta Bone.

"Give me a moment." He said with a frown. "Let me consult with Benedict."

He quietly called and exchanged words with Professor Benedict. Whatever the Senior Mech Designer said did not provide any relief to the powerful expert pilot.

The Cross Clan experienced just as much difficulties in obtaining Galenta Bone as the Larkinson Clan!

Eventually, Patriarch Reginald finished his call and looked back at Ves with a dour expression.

"Professor Benedict has promised to use his own channels to obtain Galenta Bone. If he is able to procure it, will you agree to add it to the Mars Project?"

Ves happily nodded. "Of course! It will be easy for me to do so as prime resonance works on different principles. If you Crossers actually succeed in getting your hands on this material, do tell me if you can obtain more of it. We have been looking for it ourselves. I can make the Minerva and the future version of the Blade Chaser considerably stronger."

"Only after you have made the Mars Project stronger first. My future fighting machine must possess the greatest possible combat power that we can put into a frame. We cannot pass on this new and more versatile form of resonance that you have developed."

"I agree. Just don't complain if neither of us can obtain any Galenta Bone. We don't always get what we want."

Personally, he hoped that the Crossers managed to succeed somehow. Professor Benedict possessed different connections than himself and might be able to get his hands on this rare material in his own way.

Until this happened, Ves was not going to hold out any hope.

He turned his attention back to the rest of the gathered expert pilots. "While Patriarch Reginald's interruption was not on the agenda, his request directly relates to one of the topics I wished to discuss. A few of you have displayed abilities that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to employ if you were piloting a more conventional expert mech. These abilities have shown a lot of potential even if their implementations are not yet on par. Tusa, let's start with you first since you have the most time to develop your prime abilities. Tell me about the progress that you have made."

The light mech specialist stood up from his seat. "My expert mech has access to two design spirits, namely Arnold and Trixie. Building up relationships with them is extremely important as I need to resonate with one of them in order to pull off a prime ability. I am never performing this alone. The design spirit on the other side is doing the work as well, so I am not the only one who needs to make improvements."

"It's a team effort." Joshua commented.

"That's exactly right. Only together can we activate these prime abilities in battle. The design spirits are contributing their own strength when I call upon them. We are literally borrowing their strength in order to make it all possible."

Ves nodded in satisfaction. He was happy that the Larkinson expert pilots understood the key to developing prime abilities.

"Depending on design spirits to execute your prime abilities is both a strength and a weakness. If your relationship with entities such as Arnold deteriorates, then you will be left without their assistance in a crucial battle. On the other hand, if you have developed an extremely strong bond with them, they will be willing to leverage as much strength as they can in order to help you succeed."

All of the Larkinson expert pilots nodded in understanding.

"One of the reasons why I have gotten better at pulling off my prime abilities is because Arnold and Trixie have both grown a lot stronger than at the start." Tusa said. "They not only have a lot more reserves, but they have also grown smarter and more familiar with our resonance abilities."

That made a lot of sense. Ves briefly reached out to the two design spirits in order to gauge their strengths.

Arnold had clearly grown a lot stronger due to his involvement in multiple mech designs.

While Trixie fell behind because only Tusa provided her with spiritual feedback, the singular source also caused her to take after the expert pilot a lot.

The design spirit that Ves had derived from the remnant of the Inexorable One not only reinforced her free and elusive traits, but also developed a considerably stronger bond with Venerable Tusa!

Although the connection between the two hadn't reached the intimacy between an individual and a companion spirit, the two had clearly become partners in crime!

Ves suddenly gained a new idea. What if he attempted to augment this bond and tie them together on a permanent basis?

What if turning Trisk into Venerable Tusa's permanent companion was an alternate way of bestowing him with a 'companion spirit'?

This was an interesting idea but not one that compelled him to perform this experiment on the spot.

He did not want to waste Trisk's potential. The constantly changing avian design spirit was the only 'heir' to the Inexorable One. He believed the bird still possessed a lot of untapped power.

"Tell me more about the abilities that you have employed. How have you improved them, exactly?" Ves asked Tusa.

"Arnold and I worked hard to improve my control over the Endless Paths ability." The expert pilot answered. "We managed to make it so that we can not only choose the amount of decoys of the Dark Zephyr that appear, but also gain more precise control over their movements. That is how I was able to make one of them take the place of my actual expert mech."

The mechanics of Arnold's ability was far from simple as far as Ves knew. Rather than creating illusionary clones, he creates alternate selves that seemed to exist in multiple possible realities.

While the 'copies' were ultimately fake, they seemed to possess enough substance to fool most sensors and interact with reality. They only truly revealed their falsehoods when sustaining them became too costly.

Only a single outcome among many must be valid. The actions of the Dark Zephyr in the other realities ultimately never happened, at least if everything proceeded normally.

"Have you made any other improvements?"

"Yes. The decoys of my expert mech used to last 1.86 seconds at most, but we have been able to push it up to 2.06 seconds after Arnold grew stronger. We can also produce up to 14 copies now, but it is really difficult to summon so many in a busy battlefield."

A couple of expert pilots looked horrified at Venerable Tusa. Even though his Endless Paths resonance ability was not permanent, the ability to fool enemies by producing 14 realistic decoys at the same time could be a gamechanger in the right circumstances!

This was especially when Venerable Tusa managed to combine it with his second resonance ability!

"I see that you have successfully employed both your Endless Paths and Untouchable abilities at the same time." Ves remarked with interest. "Can you tell us how you have managed to accomplish this? How can you resonate with two separate design spirits?"

"It's not that difficult once Trisk and Arnold got along with each other. When I originally came up with the idea of using a decoy to hide the disappearance of my real expert mech, I had to bring them together and encourage them to coordinate their efforts with me. It wasn't easy, but we eventually made it work!" Tusa grinned.

The actual reason why he worked so hard to develop this combo was because he felt pressured to improve his combat effectiveness. Many of his fellow expert pilots were improving at a faster rate because they had the fortune of obtaining masterwork expert mechs!

Since Tusa didn't enjoy this benefit, his resonance strength ultimately wouldn't be able to grow as quickly. He had to find other ways to improve his strength, and the solution he decided upon was to put in a lot of effort into making the most out of the power that was already at his disposal!

In other words, he focused on improving his efficiency!

All of this effort paid off as Venerable Tusa probably developed the most refined prime abilities out of anyone in the Larkinson Clan!

Tusa continued to explain his efforts to improve his combat solutions.

"I spent most of my time improving my control over our Endless Paths ability. My usage of the Untouchable ability is still rough in comparison. My Dark Zephyr can only 'phase' forward for a short distance as it doesn't last long enough for my liking. I also lose awareness while I am in this mode, so I can't react to any changes that have taken place. It is already exhausting and costly for Trisk and I to pull it off. We can't do it a second time in a single battle."

There was clearly a lot more room for improvement here, but that did not change the fact that Venerable Tusa's combo had already become formidable!