The Mech Touch

The most precious resource of a mech designer was time.

The second-most precious resource of a mech designer was inspiration.

When the Red Two broadcasted all four battles of Operation Night Jazz in full, the mech designers were among the people who gained the most from this public service!

Ves along with every other mech designer in the Red Ocean harvested a huge amount of inspiration from witnessing the performance of so many powerful and cutting-edge combat assets.

The mechs and warships presented lots of new possibilities, especially in combination with hyper technology.

Yet of all of the amazing human-built products on display, none of them inspired mech designers more than the eight god mechs that represented the best of what their profession had produced up to this point!

There were many mysteries about god mechs that vastly exceeded the scope of most mech designers, but there were still a lot of other properties that could spark a billion new ideas.

Practically every mech designer rewatched the footage of all of the god mechs at least 10 times!

Ves was no exception to this. He watched it again and again, paying particular attention to the interaction between the God Kingdom and the physical mech frame.

He managed to harvest a lot of useful insights from his detailed examinations of all of those impressive god mechs, but that did not necessarily mean he could translate that into immediate results.

Many of the ideas he generated so far could only be shelved until he gained the strength, knowledge, resources and access to realize them all. He would have to advance to the rank of Master Mech Designer at the very least to work on his more outlandish ideas!

Ves was just a Senior for the time being, so he needed to remain more grounded and work within his means.

As Saintess Ulrika asked for further clarification, Ves took a moment to figure out how he could best convey his vision and ideas for the Macharia Excelsia.

"There are enormous differences between ace mechs and god mechs." He began after a period of silence. "They differ in many ways, which I am sure you are more familiar with, but when it comes down to it, the key factor that separates one from the other is energy."

The Hexer ace pilot raised her eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"While this approach is simplistic, the strength of a unit can mostly be determined by looking at how much energy it has at its disposal. An ace mech derives much of its strength from a Saint Kingdom, but a god mech has access to a God Kingdom. The latter is far superior in terms of quality and quantity. These are the factors that enable god mechs to break reality and impose a different one within the confines of this monstrous domain."

The Saintess crossed her arms. "I am aware of that, but understanding this does not mean that my Saint Kingdom can narrow the gap to a genuine God Kingdom. I am still a junior ace pilot, and a relatively new one at that. My resonance strength is still only over 200 laveres, and it needs to approach 1545 laveres before I can work towards attaining the power of a god. It is too premature to dream about acquiring this power in advance."

Ves grinned. "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. Remember the first idea that I mentioned earlier? One of the strategies that I think will definitely allow you to fight more effectively is to work together with another powerful entity. You already have a taste of that with the upgrades that I have applied to your Hexfire rifle and your plasma sword. You can significantly enhance the power of your transphasic weapons by calling upon the assistance of the Phase King."

The female ace pilot had been practicing with those weapons long enough to understand how stronger her attacks had become if she activated their new functions.

"How do you propose to make them stronger aside from applying hyper technology to them?" Saintess Ulrika asked.

"You have already mentioned it." Ves smiled back. "Hyper technology will be the key to greatly increase their damage potential. To be more precise, it is a combination of hyper technology and E-technology that will strengthen your mech. Have you ever heard about prime mechs?"

"I have heard that phrase before from the expert pilots of your clan." Ulrika answered. "I do not have a clear understanding of what that is supposed to represent."

"It is basically a more thorough way of binding the power of a design spirit to one of my living mechs. All of my early expert mechs are made this way. They take advantage of a special alloy that I found in the Nyxian Gap to bestow them with properties comparable to modern hyper materials. I used to call it a prime material back then, because I have developed an application for it that can lead to the creation of a prime mech."

Ves began to explain what made prime mechs so special.

For her part, Saintess Ulrika expressed a notable amount of surprise when she heard that he had essentially discovered a new form of resonance!

"Let me summarize your proposal." She eventually said. "You want to rely on a certain hyper material to bless my ace mech with the power of the Superior Mother. The purpose of doing so is to allow her to lend more strength to me whenever I need to summon more power in a fight."

Ves nodded. "You can think of it as teamwork. The most basic ace mech derives all of its extraordinary power from the pilot alone. Once I have made your mech alive and assigned a design spirit to it, a new cooperation model is formed. The ace pilot, the living ace mech and the design spirit can all leverage their own energies to produce stronger results that are unattainable through regular means. This is especially the case if I can turn your Macharia Excelsia into a prime mech. All of these changes will result in a massive increase in the total amount of energy that you can leverage on the battlefield."

There was another factor that he did not mention. The strength of the design spirit had a large influence on the effectiveness of a prime mech.

The Superior Mother was undergoing a rapid evolution that would eventually lead her to catch up to her principal.

Once she had fully completed her evolution, she would become a genuine True God-level incarnation, which meant that the quality and quantity of her power would become unsurpassed by all other design spirits except for Gaia!

Ves couldn't wait to produce more prime mechs for the Hexers. The more they could draw their power from the Superior Mother, the more they could channel the power of a True God.

Of course, there were limits to how far he could go. A standard mech could only borrow a fraction of the power of a True God. Moving beyond the limit could easily cause the fragile mind of a standard mech pilot to crumble!

What made ace mechs more attractive to Ves was that the strong willpower of an ace pilot could tolerate a lot more pressure!

In fact, even though Saintess Ulrika was just a junior ace pilot, she could already resist the overpowering aura of a True God and maintain control over herself!

An ambivalent expression appeared on Saintess Ulrika's face. She thought about her past interactions with her fairly recent blessed weapons. Did she want to take this to the next level?

"No." The woman eventually said. "No more. I admire your work, Larkinson, but that does not mean I like it. My conviction compels me to rely on myself for strength. Excessive help from other powerful beings violates my own principles. I do not want to become stronger by begging for handouts from others. Even if the Superior Mother herself descends in front of me, I would rather defeat my enemies on my own than to rely on the Supreme."

Ves looked disappointed, but not too surprised. He knew her pretty well and understood that she was never the most faithful of Hexers.

The Vrakens were the most pragmatic and secularist among the Hexer people. A conviction that did not have room for divine assistance fit the character of a member of the Vraken Matriarchal Dynasty.

"I understand." Ves gently responded. "It is just an option. Prime mechs are one of my more interesting works, and according to my own theories, they become a lot stronger when harnessed by an ace pilot. The power boost that you can gain from harnessing prime resonance at this level is massive. Are you sure you want to forgo all of this extra power while you are doing your duty to your state and people?"

Ulrika's willpower pressed harder onto Ves. "My decision is final. Please do not say anything further about this. My goal is to become a god pilot like the ones that we have seen on the broadcast. I can tolerate all of the difficulties and challenges that I have to overcome by relying on my own power. This is a tempering process, and it would not do for me to avoid so many hardships by borrowing the power of the Superior Mother."

Ves could respect that decision. He might even make the same decision if he was in her place.

"Alright. I will not press you again about this." He conceded. "While we cannot proceed with turning your Macharia Excelsia into a prime mech, I can still take its model and swap the undesirable variables with less objectionable ones to make it more palatable."

"I am lost. Can you explain this alternative solution in a clearer manner?"

Ves summoned a simple wireframe version of a mech. "This is your ace mech. Assume that I have already turned it into a living mech."

"Okay."

He then proceeded to fill parts of the projected mech with red gas.

"This is E energy based on the erosion attribute that aligns best with your domain. I can use hyper materials to fill up your mech with lots of this specific energy."

That caused Saintess Ulrika to become a lot more interested in this idea.

"I can follow you so far."

"Good. Now, it is not enough to fill your mech with this E energy. After all, you already have access to E energy by using your Saint Kingdom to harness the radiation in the environment. What truly enables you to resonate with all of this extra E energy is to bind it to your living mech!"

Saintess Ulrika understood what Ves was going with this idea.

"You are claiming that you can make my ace mech stronger by giving it a larger reservoir of E energy?"

Ves nodded with a smile. "It is kind of similar to fostering a companion spirit. It is a pity that you have grown too strong for me to bestow you with one, but boosting the power of your living mech beyond the norm is a good alternative. It is sort of like turning your Macharia Excelsia into a prime mech, but instead of borrowing the power of the Superior Mother, you instead rely on the basic relationship between a mech pilot and a living mech. It is an inferior or simplified version of a prime mech. You can call it... a subprime mech."

The word subprime did not exactly carry a lot of positive connotations, but it was a fitting addition to his theoretical framework.

What mattered was that this was one of the methods he recently came up with to empower his living mechs with the use of hyper materials!

The greatest advantage of using hypers in this manner was that they could supercharge a living mech!

By merging them with a much larger pool of E energy, he could effectively amplify their power!

From the perspective of cultivation science, this was a relatively simple and direct way of using better materials to upgrade an artifact!