The Mech Touch

It wasn't until the next day that Ves and Gloriana presented the fruits of their labor to their visiting relatives.

They waited until they sent their playful children off to another day at the Joan Devos Elementary School before they brought Ark and Benjamin to the design lab.

The two older Larkinsons had been waiting for a long time to get introduced to their new high-tier expert mechs.

Ever since Ves demonstrated his exceptional talent and abilities as a mech designer, every other Larkinson believed that he was capable of developing the most wondrous mechs.

Though Ves did not feel as if he could live up to the unreasonably high expectations of his relatives, he hoped that his work on the two expert mech design projects presented enough surprises to delight his uncle and grandfather!

"Alexa." Ves greeted the young woman when he entered the design lab.

"Ah, you must be his latest protege." Venerable Benjamin spoke as he laid eyes on the former Terran. "I have heard that you have played an indispensable role in completing my grandson's mech designs."

"I have my strengths." The woman politely replied. "I have heard much about you as well. You have always served as the compassionate elder and the moral compass of the Larkinsons. It is rather amazing how you have been able to recover your strength after suffering a serious injury all of this time. Brain damage is hard to recover from even for first-raters."

They chatted for a bit before they all gathered around a projection of the two completed expert mech designs.

As the pilots who placed so much of their hopes on their new machines, they instantly fell silent and became engrossed by the sights.

Even though the projection was only able to convey a fraction of the charm of these two amazing high-tier expert mechs, they had remained in contact with the mech designers often enough to understand the broad strokes of their upcoming machines.

"The Jupiter Project and the Blood Star Mark II Project are both high-tier expert mechs that are completely adapted to the Hyper Generation." Ves began to explain. "They share many of the same features that I will explain soon enough, but they also differ substantially from each other due to your individual preferences and conditions."

Both Ark and Benjamin nodded in understanding. When they glanced at the design that they weren't as familiar with, they could sense a lot of similarities and differences.

The oldest among them smirked for a moment as he laid eyes on the latest iteration of the Jupiter Project.

"You always wanted to be at the center of attention. With this bright and shiny lion-headed mech, you will definitely be able to attract everyone's eyes without a doubt. I am afraid thatyou will go too far with this. It is not always good to present yourself as the highest priority threat on the battlefield."

"I can take it, father." Ark retorted. "I am never truly alone when I fight. The hopes and expectations of my troops always bestow me with the courage to challenge stronger opponents. I will truly be able to lift off with my new mech once I advance to ace pilot. I am much more concerned about your own mech."

"What is wrong with my Blood Star Mark II? It is a powerful machine in its own right as far as I can tell."

"I do not doubt the design abilities of my nephew." Ark shook his head. "What I am questioning is the theme of your expert mech. You have always presented yourself as a hero and ; protector of our people back when you were in your prime. You were my hero, you know. I always tried to pick up where you left off. What made you agree to turn your expert mech into a machine that looks like it is piloted by a vampire?"

The contrast between the Jupiter Project and the Blood Star Mark II was strong.

The former looked like a mech that a hero from an action drama would proudly pilot!

The latter was coated in red and possessed an aggressive and not all that benevolent vibe.

Venerable Benjamin let out a sigh. "I am no longer the man I was before, Ark. You have never suffered a setback as enormous as mine. My experiences as a powerless cripple has changed me. I no longer care too much about the values that I once held dear before. I agree with my grandson that family is more important than any other duty and obligation. If we want our clan and its people to remain alive, it is not enough to have the right intentions. The Blood Star Mark II is an excellent reflection of my new self."

Both living expert mechs were supposed to align with their respective pilots.

While General Ark Larkinson still remained an idealist at heart, Venerable Benjamin Larkinson's much richer and more diverse life experiences had caused him to transition into a realist.

This was why Ves got along a lot better with his grandfather than his uncle these days.

Gloriana clapped her hands. "Ahem, the two of you can discuss family matters at a later date. Let us introduce the full features of your respective expert mechs to you. It is importan that you gain a thorough understanding of what we hope to accomplish with these designs. It will allow us to be more in sync when we finally begin the fabrication runs."

She waved her hand and set the projection of the Blood Star Mark II aside.

"As you can see, the Jupiter Project is designed as an unusual command mech with enhanced direct combat power. We have tried our best to outfit it with the usual command and control modules that are expected for this mech archetype. Many of them are miniaturized, so they take up less space and impose a lower burden on your machine. You can still command your units in comfort, but the sensor and communication system won't be able to penetrate through heavy jamming unless you direct a lot more power to them. This shouldn't be necessary if you make good use of our new mech ecosystem."

"Mech ecosystem?" Ark questioned.

"Ah, I haven't explained much about it because I have been working to complete it in the last few months." Ves explained. "It is a mech ecosystem that is supposed to be exclusive to our clan, though I do not mind extending it to your Warborn as well. It is a product that deeply combines the properties of living mechs and E-technology. While I cannot rule out th< possibility that other brilliant mech designers can imitate this ecosystem one day, I am pretty confident that it will remain unrivaled for quite a while."

He was very proud of coming up with such a useful and promising mech ecosystem!

"That does not give me much information." General Ark frowned. "Can you explain the different this mech ecosystem of yours can make?"

"Why certainly, uncle. First, you should already be familiar with all of the strange and mystical networks that I have created. Kinship networks and battle networks have always served as the trump cards of our clan. When I started to think about tying the mechs of the Larkinson Army more closely together, I took inspiration from these networks to devise a means to increase the collective power of our Larkinson mechs."

Both Ark and Benjamin were familiar with the dynamics of a mech ecosystem. They were particularly prominent in mech militaries as the adoption of one or several ecosystems could massively reduce the logistical burden of large forces.

What was strange was that Ves did not utilize the same mold.

"Conventional mech ecosystems are mostly technical in nature." Ves explained. "What makes mine different is that while they impose a certain degree of standardization and the use of common parts and measurements, it is not the focus this time. As I have mentioned before, E-technology plays a major role, so my mech ecosystem is mainly concerned with binding and collectively empowering my mechs through the medium of E energy."

"That... sounds similar to what you have done with a battle network." Ark remarked.

"That is an astute remark. I have taken a lot of inspiration from my battle networks when I devised my mech ecosystem. You can think of the latter as an attempt to make the power of a battle network available to every Larkinson mech pilot. The basic requirements necessary for a Larkinson mech to conform to my ecosystem is that it must incorporate a plentiful amount of hyper materials. It is not enough for it to be a hyper mech. It has to be a prime mech or a subprime mech."

"Tch." Gloriana made an ugly sound. "I told you to stop using that ugly word, Ves. Subprime makes your work sound worse than it actually ought to be. Who would feel proud for piloting a mech that sounds subpar? Anything that is preceded by the word 'sub' is always regarded as flawed and imperfect. Dwarves are subhumans. Cheap handbags are substandard. Mechs that are designed in tournaments perform suboptimally. Do you truly want to put your so-called subprime mechs in the same group?"

"...Now that you mention it, perhaps it is better if I come with an alternative label." Ves conceded. "Let me think. Hm, seeing as subprime mechs are pretty much an exploration into their nature as living artifacts, perhaps it is better to call them artifact mechs."

His wife's expression softened after she heard the new name. "That is a sound name for this new classification of mechs. None of your living mechs will feel ashamed for carrying this label."

With that little incident dealt with, Ves resumed his original explanation.

"In any case, one of the common traits that every modern Larkinson mech will share is that they will have a lot of E energy at their disposal. Whether it belongs to a design spirit or a living mech is not a big deal. What matters is that every living mech has access to a notable reserve of E energy. The problem is that unless the machine has gone through a lot of growth, it cannot effectively leverage it. This is why I want my works to join forces and pool their energies together. Once enough Larkinson mechs group up with each other, they should be able to produce fairly powerful effects that enable them to punch far above their weight. The greater the number of living mechs gathering together, the more power they can exert as a collective!"

"What makes this different from a battle network?" General Ark frowned in confusion.

"The full explanation is too complicated." Ves replied. "I won't give you the full story because you will just get lost. In short, a battle network is different because it attempts to tap into the power of a strong entity that is normally out of reach. My new mech ecosystem doesn't try to do that under normal circumstances. It tries to leverage the E energy that is already embedded into the Larkinson mechs. The threshold and difficulty of harnessing all of this power are a lot lower as a result. Any Larkinson mech pilot can make use of the power of our new mech ecosystem."

Previously, only certain highly cohesive and homogenous mech legions such as the Swordmaidens and the Penitent Sisters could utilize the power of their own battle networks.

This was way too restrictive for Ves, so he sought to develop an alternative that could allow his troops to effectively make use of a weakened but more accessible variation of a battle network!

He succeeded in his endeavors. The new Larkinson-exclusive mech ecosystem was his greatest hope of boosting the power of the Larkinson Army, thereby giving them a much bette chance of survival in the years to come!

"What is the name of this new mech ecosystem of yours?" Ark asked as he had already begun to visualize what he could do with this promising new feature.

"I call it the Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem." Ves answered with a grin. "The possibilities are endless. Anyone who is strong and capable enough can take charge of a collective and shape much of the combined energies into different expressions. From forming an energy manifestation of a design spirit to channeling all spare power into a single mech, our forces will change forever after my new ecosystem is applied to all of Larkinson mechs."

This was the power of Ves' spiritual engineering, or rather E-technology!