The Mech Touch

The Transcendent Punisher was arguably the biggest and most powerful mech that Ves had ever designed.

It was one thing to flesh out designs by completing its schematics. It was another thing to piece it together in person up close!

The immense size and mass of the mech was already intimidating in itself, but its pure and sacred glow seemed to give people the impression that the machine was an embodiment of Ylvaine's wrath!

Just looking at the mech caused Ves to gain the impression that it was ready to exact divine punishment on anything that affronted the prophet!

"Transcendent Punisher indeed." Gloriana remarked as she looked ready to go to bed. The marathon session had drained her a lot! "Our artillery mech fits the prophet well. Only a boy could output so much threat and violence."

Ves was too tired to palm his face. Now that he deactivated the remote domain fragment in his mind, he no longer gained any sympathy for her Hexer views.

That was another side effect of his previous state. Understanding Gloriana meant gaining a very unwelcome glimpse on what she thought about boys! That was something that made Ves even more determined to guard against contamination!

"Even if it's not a masterwork, it's quality is remarkable enough to merit its own name. Do you have any suggestions?"

She shrugged. "I'm not in a naming mood right now. I don't have any inspiration."

Neither did Ves for that matter. As he examined both of their conditions, he noticed that they had expended quite a lot of spiritual energy.

The new technique which he called remote domain sharing was very useful but also very costly. If not for learning so much after activating it for the first time, Ves would have considered this attempt to be a loss.

As it was, Ves and his partner gained so many new insights that they had a lot to think about for the next couple weeks. This was good because it would take up to a month for them to restore from their loss.

Ves hadn't lost as much spiritual energy as he was a bit more efficient in its use. He also built up a modest reserve of excess spiritual energy which he could absorb right away.

However, Gloriana was able to recover faster because she could rely on prayer to accelerate her spiritual energy production.

His face scrunched a bit. Developing a replacement for his Grand Dynamo became a much higher priority than before!

He squeezed his brain for a suitable name. "What about the Prophet's Fist?"

"It's not a melee mech."

"The name is figurative. Anyone who suffers from this mech's attack will feel as if the Great Prophet punched them in the gut. It's not a pleasant experience, that's for sure!"

"Whatever."

Gloriana accepted his stupid name without any further complaint. While she was somewhat proud of crafting a good mech, she did not care as much about the Transcendent Punisher design as her husband.

Unlike her, Ves had long looked forward to fielding the Larkinson Clan's first true second-class mech!

The Transcendent Messenger was but the first of many powerful Larkinson-exclusive mechs!

Hopefully, Ves would be able to replace 80 to 90 percent of the stopgap mechs with Larkinson mechs of the same caliber!

"They Ylvainan faction in our clan will welcome our Transcendent Punisher model. They won't feel neglected anymore. They can also look forward to playing a key role in defending our expeditionary fleet for a long time to come. With the sheer power of this model, it will take at least a few decades before it begins to show its age."

Gloriana nodded. "Even if its power falls off, we can easily upgrade its armament in the event we gain access to better weapon components in the Red Ocean."

This was one of the key design features of the Transcendent Punisher. Mindful of how circumstances might change in different environments, the pair added a bit of modularity to its huge design.

While it wasn't an actual modular or semi-modular design, a crew of mech technicians should be able to swap out its weapon components without needing to disassemble the entire machine.

Of course, it would still take at least a day to perform such a comprehensive procedure. The weapon mounts were tightly affixed to the rest of the frame in order to prevent the Transcendent Punisher from wrecking itself with each weapon discharge!

This was something to consider for the future. The Transcendent Punisher's current weapon loadout was more than sufficient to handle most threats in the surrounding star clusters.

Hardly any second-class mech could withstand getting focused upon by gauss cannons, positron beam cannons and pulse cannons.

Perhaps only expert mechs were able to withstand the barrage, but as long as hundreds of Transcendent Punishers accurately fired upon their positions, their resonance shields and energy shields wouldn't last very long!

Ves grinned. He actually looked forward to testing out his latest mech model against some uppity enemies. The only downside was that it was very difficult to mass produce his heavy artillery mech.

In fact, Gloriana had to upgrade her mech workshop in order to fabricate such a huge machine!

"Once we gain our factory ship, we should focus on pumping out as many Transcendent Punishers as possible. I'll tell my staff to stockpile enough raw materials to produce hundreds of copies."

"That's a lot, you know."

"Our upgraded fleet can handle it. The factory ship and every combat carrier we're about to receive all possess bunkers that need to be filled. It's a waste to leave them empty in the event of battle."

The couple wrapped up the session. Ves ordered the Prophet's Fist to be shipped off to somewhere else where Major Verle could decide on how to utilize this mech.

Once Ves and Gloriana cleaned up the mech workshop, they left the compartment and dragged their weary bodies back to the latter's stateroom.

Both of them crashed into beds right after they changed their clothes. Their cats looked bewildered at how much the mech designers exhausted themselves!

"Meow." Lucky pressed his paw against Ves' cheek.

"Miaow miaow." Clixie curled her body next to Gloriana's head.

After a long night of rest, the newlyweds woke up again. After undergoing their morning routine, the pair discussed their next actions.

"I have a lot of matters to catch up to." Ves spoke. "We've been preoccupied with fabricating our mechs for two straight weeks. A lot has changed. Many guests have left. Master Willix and the Ubiquitous Force are already back in Centerpoint. Our talks with the Cross Clan have almost reached their end. Some of the hardware that we've ordered are already being delivered as we speak."

He did not look forward to handling all of these affairs, but he had no choice if he wanted to stay on top of the situation. He couldn't delegate everything.

Gloriana looked a bit tired as well. "I really hate it when you put me in this awful state. I don't feel as enthused about mechs as before. How can I perform any design work under these conditions? It seems I will be devoting my time on studying and handling the affairs of the Glory Seekers."

Both of them wanted to remain productive. Neither of them were in a mood to resume their honeymoon, not that they did anything too special.

Still, both of them were somewhat satisfied with their gains. The Prophet's Fist achieved a level of quality that gave both of them hope of reaching the peak again.

Ves figured he just had to spend more effort into increasing his emotional attachment to a mech design. Previously, cared about the Transcender Punisher design, but obviously he could have been more passionate.

The pair discussed when and how to publish their completed mech designs.

The Chiron and the Transcendent Punisher were meant for internal use. Ves did not need to announce them to the public. Neither did he need to present their designs to the MTA to undergo validation.

"The Transcendent Punisher can wait until we receive our factory ship, but the Chiron should start production straight away." Ves declared. "Our clan has rebuilt its mech academy, so there are plenty of mech cadets who can make immediate use of our exclusive training mech."

Ves looked forward to seeing how much of a difference the Chiron could make at the start. While the true potential of this self-adjusting training mech wouldn't become prominent until years later, it should already be considerably better than the bog-standard mechs the academy were currently utilizing.

"What about the Crystal Lord Mark II and the Sanctuary?" Gloriana questioned.

"There is no need to unveil the Sanctuary yet. Perhaps the only mech that has a lot of sales potential is the Crystal Lord Mark II." Ves replied.

"Will you hold one of your amazing press conferences again?"

Ves haplessly gestured to his tired face. "Do I look like I am in a condition to hold a compelling presentation? I'll be stuck like this for several weeks. We can either wait to publish the Mark II or leave it up to someone else to announce it to the public."

"You can also settle for publishing a simple press statement."

"I'll just shove this question to Raymond. The LMC shouldn't have to rely on me all the time."

His response made Gloriana pleased. "Good. You don't have to step forward each time you accomplish something. While I know you like the Crystal Lord product line, it isn't impressive compared to our second-class mech designs."

"The Crystal Lord Mark II may possess a fraction of the power of the Transcendent Punisher, but it has the potential to become the LMC's latest cash cow."

"Do you really think that? No offense, Ves, but the demand for premium rifleman mechs isn't great."

"That just means that even if the Mark II's sales fall short of reaching the level of the Desolate Soldier and the Doom Guard, the new model will still improve our financial position."

He had a lot more faith in the success of the latest edition of the Crystal Lord now that it had been brought up to par with his other glow-oriented mechs.

Once they decided on how to handle all of their finished mechs, they began to look to the future.

"We have a few weeks to think about our next round of design projects." He said. "Even if we aren't in the most creative mood right now, we can figure out the roles we need to fulfill."

"You wanted to design a lot of second-class mechs this time, right?"

"Yeah. We need to complete our commission with the Hexers as soon as possible. We also have to outfit most of our Larkinson mech pilots with living mechs. Ideally, I want to complete both of these objectives in two years."

Gloriana looked a bit shocked. "Two years? That's too fast!"

"We can do it as long as we work hard enough."

"Our assistants won't be able to keep up. Didn't we talk about this?"

"We did. I also mentioned that we can find ways to circumvent this problem. In fact, don't underestimate how much our assistants can currently do. Each of them are working hard to get up to our level. We can always try. We'll just have to lengthen the time it takes to complete our second-class design projects by a couple of months."

The first round of projects showed that four months was sufficient to complete a third-class mech design. However, second-class mech designs benefited a lot from extra development time.

While both Ves and Gloriana had already thought about some of the mechs they wanted to design next, they decided to wait until after they recovered from their exertion.

As Ves was ready to depart the Stellar Chaser, Gloriana brought up something important.

"My parents and my brothers and sisters are ready to bid farewell to us. Please come with me to Parma Imago. I know you don't like to be around my mother, but we both need to meet them at least one more time."

"Err.. I need to meet with the Cross Patriarch.."

Gloriana glared at him. "You are meeting with your new mother-in-law."

"Okay.."