The Mech Touch

Knowing the history of the dwarven race was not the same as living like a dwarf.

Certainly, Ves grew impressed by how well the dwarven physique coped with 4.6 g. Rion's body remained vigorous and strong even after walking around or working all day.

Plenty of blood was being pumped into the brain, keeping Rion fully cognizant throughout his day.

A typical dwarf was multiple times stronger than a baseline human. Though the difference wasn't felt on a heavy gravity planet, Ves imagined that a dwarf would be able to lift several people with ease on a standard gravity planet!

As the first human products created by human civilization, the dwarf breeds underwent numerous updates and revisions throughout the centuries.

Each generation that passed, the geneticists continually optimized their genes a little further. Ves guessed that the dwarves of Desala X belonged to a fairly recent version of dwarf breed, because Rion's body experienced no discomfort at living in this environment at all! It was as if his species of dwarves had naturally evolved from this heavy planet!

The dwarf breed that Rion belonged to also didn't contain any of the illegal cognitive impairments that turned them into primitives. The extreme breed of dwarves on Aeon Corona VII were aptly called wildlings for their intellectual degeneration.

Ves suspected that the only reason that House Kantis veered away from the illegal dwarf breeds was because they didn't want to waste too much funding on schooling.

The dwarves on Desala X still needed to be smart enough to learn how to read and write and study all kinds of technical knowledge to operate the mining equipment.

In fact, Ves didn't consider the local dwarves to be mentally handicapped at all. As Ves observed the dwarves following Vulcan's orders and trying to cobble up new parts by following his precise instructions, he found that they were adapting faster than he expected!

Though their knowledge and technical foundation was full of holes, as long as he instructed them on how to do something, they didn't require much time to internalize his lessons!

"Are they actually.. smart?"

After days of observation, the enterprising dwarves continued to impress him on their speed of adaptation. As they partially disassembled their battle wagons and started to produce proper replacement parts, his impression on the rebels gradually improved.

Their earlier works were awful because they didn't know any better. With House Kantis restricting much of their knowledge, they were millenia behind the development curve when compared to mainstream human civilization.

What they managed to accomplish under all of these adverse circumstances was actually rather commendable.

Yet now that a veritable god had descended onto the rebels, some of their promising potential finally found purchase!

As Ves continued to parade as a god, he patiently treated the dwarves as if they were his students.

Ves could not do all of the work alone. He needed to activate all of the manpower that the Desala Resistance Movement had at their disposal to finish the preparations of his revised plan!

He taught the eager dwarves how to purify their metal scrap, how to forge uniform armor plating that fit seamlessly with each other and how to put parts together with greater precision.

He showed them how their tools should actually be used, he corrected their many misconceptions around technology, he instilled many of the rules and customs that proper mech technicians took for granted.

At some times, Ves truly felt he was embodying the god he invented and pretended to be. The lie was slowly becoming true as he continued to uplift the dwarves into something better than House Kantis wanted them to be. He felt as if he had become the father of a promising new race of humans!

The more Ves taught, the more he became impressed by his students.

They rarely failed or disappointed him. Their eagerness to please the God of Dwarves caused them to exhibit an incredible amount of drive. Their motivation and passion for their work had skyrocketed and reached a level that they had never achieved in their entire lifetimes!

At best, working for House Kantis was drudgery. At worst, it was torture!

There was practically no reward for the dwarves to work harder or more earnestly for their slave drivers. The only reason to keep up their work at all was because they would be punished if they failed to meet their daily quotas!

Their bodies were very demanding in terms of consumption. All of the power exerted by their bodies did not come for free! Dwarves ate at least three times as much as regular humans in order to supply all of the nutrients and calories needed to go about their day!

The moment the overseers curtailed their food rations was the moment a dwarf might starve to death!

For this reason, fear constantly motivated the dwarves to work diligently.

They had never worked with something to look forward to. Vulcan's simple encouragement and illusions of hope was something completely novel to the dwarves.

Once Ves corrected their work methods and provided enough guidance, the productivity of the rebel dwarves soared!

A week into his Mastery experience, Rion's body stood on a ramp and looked down on the battle wagons as they turned into partial skeletons.

Their crude and improvised designs were profoundly ugly to Ves. While he worked best with mechs, he was still able to reengineer the battle wagons into better machines!

Design work was something that was still out of the reach of the local dwarves. The amount of upbringing needed to turn a typical dwarf into a competent and well-rounded designer of mechs or other hardware was too much!

Vulcan had to supply the designs. Each of the ones he issued managed to impress the dwarves beyond reason.

Their impression of him as a god continued to rise! Worship in him increased and the dwarves became more overt in their attempts to please their god so that they might be rewarded with his blessings!

It was all rather funny to Ves. This charade was becoming increasingly more impactful as his stature among the dwarves continued to rise after every day.

"Great Vulcan, are you proud of us?" Gion Greybeard asked from his side.

The robed dwarf had been spending the most time with Vulcan. Just as Ves learned more about the dwarves, so did Gion become more familiar with their new patron.

"Your dwarves are quick learners." Rion's body grunted. "I have seen worse dwarves. They are.. not as quick on the uptake as your rebels. I am proud to count these dwarves among my people."

"You have given us hope when no one extended their hand to us. For that, you have earned our eternal gratitude."

"That is good to hear, but I will only be able to assist your people up to a point. The tall folk enjoy the protection of many gods. While I am capable of displaying far more power than I have shown up until now, I will inevitably draw the attention of cruel and deceitful deities if I persist."

"We will make sure to meet your expectations, my lord! The hardships we have suffered has readied us for the challenges to come! No matter how much the tall folk wish to keep us trapped, they cannot deny our humanity forever!"

Rion's body smiled. While Ves did not expect to become a savior of dwarves in his Mastery experience, he no longer held any animosity towards the System for forcing him to give the rebels a chance.

It was odd how much satisfaction he derived from guiding the dwarves. The previous problems he faced in the present time such as trying to escape the clutches of the Friday Coalition or the immense pressure to make a masterwork mech all faded away.

This diversion in his life was completely divorced from his actual life. It was a much-needed vacation that not only exposed him to a completely different setting, but also allowed him to experience the weight of responsibility from a different direction.

It was difficult to be responsible for so many people. He needed to think over every decision and find creative ways to overcome many problems.

He enjoyed it. He enjoyed pretending to be a god. Even though it was built upon an enormous lie, he became increasingly more immersed into his roleplay.

Unfortunately, Ves wasn't in charge of Rion's body all the time.

Even though the dwarf had been hailed as both an 'ace pilot' and an 'avatar of Vulcan', Rion was still a miner as far as Outpost 35 was concerned!

Rion couldn't hang around in the underground base all the time. His absence would quickly be noticed if he didn't return, and that might cause the guards to search the outpost of his whereabouts!

For this reason, Rion still needed to show up at his regular shifts and operate his mining vehicle for long hours.

In these times, Ves surrendered control of the body back to its rightful owner.

Though Rion was initially confused about his possession, after a long talk with the other dwarves, he turned into one of Vulcan's most devout worshippers!

"Great Vulcan, will you really be able to deliver me to the Genie Pearl and help me take control of this mech?"

"Can you bless me with the knowledge on how to defeat the tall folk mechs?"

"Are there more gods like you who we can worship alongside you?"

"SHUT UP!" Ves mentally yelled in the inquisitive dwarf's mind! "I am in the process of designing newer and greater weapons! Do not interrupt my holy labor!"

Aside from dealing with the stupid dwarf's nagging, Ves also had to keep his composure together when it was time for Rion to practice his piloting.

The first time Rion returned to his abode, Ves directly took control of his body in order to fiddle with the simulator pod.

There was no way for the escape plan to succeed if Rion still remained incompetent! Forget about piloting a frontline mech, there was no way the incompetent, self-trained mech pilot would be able to make good use of the Genie Pearl!

For this reason, Ves took direct charge of Rion's future training sessions. He threw out all of the default training scenarios and programmed some scenarios from scratch based on his knowledge on how mech pilots were trained.

"What.. what is this gravity?!" Rion exclaimed when his virtual light skirmisher immediately tripped because he mistimed his steps!

"Welcome to standard gravity." Ves mentally replied. "This is the gravity of the tall folk. It is weak and light, which is proof of how your oppressors are weak. You can defeat them at their own game, but to do so, you must first go back to the beginning and learn how to pilot a mech the proper way."

"This.."

"Don't complain that this is useless! I have studied the stolen footage of the Genie Pearl, and it hasn't escaped my notice that it is equipped with an antigrav backpack! This means that the mech will be able to move just as fast and effortlessly as it does in standard gravity conditions! We need to take advantage of this speed in order for you to outmaneuver and defeat as many enemy guard mechs as possible!"

"W-What about piloting mechs in familiar gravity, my lord?"

"Forget about it!" Ves immediately responded. "We need to end the battle faster before the antigrav backpack runs out of energy. We also need you to become so proficient in piloting light mechs that you will be able to avoid damage to this critical module. In short, you will need to learn how to make the most out of leveraging the speed of this mech type!"

"I can't! This mech is too fast! I am afraid it will fly into the open sky if I do something wrong!"

"Don't be silly, you dolt! Mechs don't randomly float into space if it jumps! Gravity doesn't work that way!"

Ves could already foresee that it would take weeks to instill the fundamentals of mech piloting into Rion. There was no way he could turn the dwarf into a passable mech pilot within a week!