The Mech Touch

Ves considered the Valkyrie Prime to be the Valkyrie variant with the highest potential.

In fact, if he had more confidence in his latest creation, he would have gone a step further and declared it to be his strongest Valkyrie mech straight away!

The reason why he withheld this judgement was because he couldn't definitively state that the Valkyrie Brunhild performed worse than the Valkyrie Prime.

At worst, the Valkyrie Prime sat between the Valkyrie Avenger and the Valkyrie Brunhild. The lack of certain key strategic materials prevented Ves from replicating all of the advantages of the latter.

Ves still felt sore about his inability to obtain Rorach's Bone. If he could add even a modest portion to the Valkyrie Prime, the mech would definitely be able to synergize well with Joshua's force of will!

As it was, Ves and Venerable Joshua had to make do with a mech without any inherent regenerating properties.

The Valkyrie Prime wasn't weak in other aspects. Aside from its excellent energy reserves, powerful flight system and upgraded sensor and communication systems, its defenses had reached an unprecedented level!

He couldn't have processed so much Unending alloy without his new personal workshop. Now that he finally obtained some proper production equipment, he could finally fabricate some proper armor plating for a mech.

Not just the Valkyrie Prime, but also its loadout was made out of Unending alloy! With a spear and shield made out of the same material, Ves believed that it could defeat nearly every standard second-class mech!

As for fending off expert mechs, Ves did not dare to state that the Valkyrie Prime could rely on its resilient structure and gear to get the better of them. Expert mechs possessed many comprehensive advantages that could completely trounce his custom mech.

What Ves strove for with the Valkyrie Prime was not to equal an expert mech, but to get as close to it as possible. That was what he aimed for with his upcoming experiment.

First, he explained his thoughts to Venerable Joshua.

"Do you know what resonance is?" He began.

As an expert pilot, how could he not know? "Resonance is what takes place when I synchronize with my mech. Or at least, that is what is supposed to happen. Outside of my breakthroughs, it's hard for me to accomplish resonance with the Quint. The mech just feels like a block to me. No matter how much I exert my mind, I simply can't get it to resonate."

Ves smiled in reassurance. "You don't have to feel disappointed by that. The Quint is ultimately just a standard mech. Without incorporating any compatible resonating materials in the mech, you can't arouse any resonance."

He wondered how the first expert pilots came into power. Did the first expert pilot coincidentally match up with a mech that just happened to have compatible resonating materials?

Perhaps the mech industry gradually built up an entire framework around expert pilots and expert mechs from this accident!

As Ves currently lacked the time, the knowledge and the resonating materials to develop a proper expert mech, he had to start from scratch.

He was not resigned to letting Joshua languish with the Quint, which he had completely outgrown as an expert pilot. Even if the Valkyrie Prime failed to catch up to an expert pilot, its superior performance should still allow Joshua to exert more strength on the battlefield.

"What does resonance have to do with this mech?" Joshua asked. He directed a suspicious gaze towards the tall and silent Hexer mech. "Are you saying…"

"That is what I am hoping to accomplish."

"How? Is it because of this strange material you are using?"

"Not completely." Ves shook his head. "Let me show you something."

He walked forward and placed his hand on the surface of the machine.

"MOTHER!" He called! "Please infuse this mech with your energy! Please lend your power to the Valkyrie Prime so that my friend here can leverage your strength in battle!"

Of course, he wasn't actually saying that to the Superior Mother. Ves was merely putting on a show to impress and allow Venerable Joshua to understand that the spiritual entity was responsive to those she favored.

While Ves behaved dramatically, he concentrated his mind and formed a connection to the Superior before he sent a more detailed request. He didn't want her to blindly dump her spiritual energy into the Valkyrie Prime.

Instead, he wanted her to channel her spiritual energy to two different destinations.

Much like his other spiritually-enhanced mechs, he wanted the Superior Mother to saturate the spiritual foundation of the Valkyrie Prime.

Since Ves had made this request numerous times, the Superior Mother knew what to do. She quickly began to channel a tiny portion of her abundant spiritual energy into the spiritual foundation of the newly-fabricated mech.

The change was obvious to Ves. His spiritual vision easily observed how the mech's spiritual foundation became thicker and more solid.

"Something is changing!" Joshua remarked. "It's becoming more and more like the Quint!"

The expert pilot might not be as perceptive as Ves, but he stood very close to the Valkyrie Prime. With the help of his life domain, he was able to tell that the custom mech rapidly bloomed to life.

The strengthening that the Valkyrie Prime went through was not comparable to the Valkyrie Redeemers that he had improved for the Wodin Dynasty. He had set a maximum enhancement level of just 25 Ves at the time.

As for the many Valkyrie mechs that the Hegemony produced and supplied to the Hex Army, even if they grew more powerful somehow, their enhancement was capped to the same degree.

Ever since Ves formulated his standard LMC mech template, all of his products aside from those used by his clan could go no higher than 25 Ves.

This did not mean his commercial and commissioned mechs could not grow further. Their spiritual foundation continually grew more unique when they were being used. The only shortcoming was that they wouldn't be able to help their mech pilots progress all that much.

It was different for his LMC mechs. Whenever possible, Ves wanted to saturate his mechs to at least 25 Ves when they were made. This already provided a substantial advantage to his mech pilots. An enhanced foundation developed a unique character faster and became more in tune with their mech pilots.

From the experiments he performed during the Nyxian Gap Campaign, Ves had also learned that higher levels of enhancement resulted in more dramatic effects. The only reason why he did not inflate every mech to at least 100 Ves was because it drained his design spirits and burdened his mech pilots.

In this case, these concerns didn't apply.

Due to the millions of Blessed Squire and Valkyrie mechs in use today, the Superior Mother was swimming in spiritual feedback. Not only that, but her nature as an ancestral spirit also allowed her to receive a tiny amount of spiritual feedback from every Hexer who 'worshipped' the Superior Mother.

Not even the Desolate Guardian was as rich as the Superior Mother!

Even though the overwhelming amount of spiritual feedback that she received was low in quality, the sheer quantity meant that the Superior Mother did not suffer any noticeable loss when she pumped the Valkyrie Prime all the way to 110 Ves!

Yes, 110 Ves!

Since Ves lavished quite a lot of care and attention to the Valkyrie Prime, it wasn't surprising that it started off with a stronger foundation.

Unfortunately, once the spiritual foundation became fully saturated at its current state, any additional spiritual energy that the Superior Mother donated simply spilled over. The Valkyrie Prime was like a bucket that had been filled with water. No matter how much additional water poured into it, the bucket simply couldn't accommodate more.

"Well… maybe that's not strictly true." He muttered.

He usually visualized spiritual energy as a cloud of energetic gas. What if he found a way to compress it into a liquid? What if he could compress it to the point where it turned solid?

Would he be able to strengthen his mech even further?

This was an interesting idea, but not one that Ves could explore at the moment. He shoved it to the back of his mind with the rest of his unexplored ideas. There were so much of them that they practically formed a mountain of neglected possibilities!

"Wow." Venerable Joshua said as he could sense the Valkyrie Prime approaching the strength of the Quint. "I'm not sure what has changed, but I can definitely feel it's more alive now. Is this what will help me perform better?"

"Not quite. If the Valkyrie Prime only approximated the Quint, it wouldn't be special enough for me to make it in person. Just wait for it. This mech is about to get a lot stronger!"

Once the Superior Mother noticed the spiritual foundation could not take any more strengthening, she directed her flow to another aspect of the mech.

This time, her spiritual energy poured into the Unending alloy that Ves had integrated into the Valkyrie Prime!

Ves watched with glee as the Unending alloy easily accepted the influx of spiritual energy. Just like P-stone, the mysterious material actively sucked in the energy as it came near.

The strength exuded by the Valkyrie Prime continued to increase. In fact, it quickly exceeded the strength of the Quint and kept growing further!

"Hahahaha! That's it! That's the spirit! Go on, mother!"

Venerable Joshua looked wide-eyed as he took a few steps back. While he didn't sense the mech becoming more 'alive', it somehow grew 'heavier' to his limited senses.

This was a related but different form of empowerment!

The Valkyrie Prime's capacity was huge. Ves incorporated many tons of Unending alloy into the mech. Not just its armor, but also its frame and much of its internal structure was made out of this extraordinary material.

If not for the fact that Ves had to add a lot of shock-absorbing material to the mech, he would have been able to stuff it with even more Unending alloy!

When the Superior Mother noticed that the Valkyrie Prime's physical frame wasn't even close to reaching saturation, she opened up her spiritual spigot even further. More and more of her spiritual energy gushed into the mech, which thickened its glow to such a degree that Ves and Joshua felt as if they were standing in front of several mech companies of Valkyrie mechs!

The spiritual energy capacity of Unending alloy was actually quite low. Ves had performed some tests beforehand and compared the capacity varying amounts of P-stone to identical amounts of Unending alloy.

After performing many tests, Ves concluded that P-stone was a true spiritual energy battery. In comparison, Unending alloy was mostly just a tough material that happened to store a bit of spiritual energy.

Unending alloy was only able to store around 4 percent of the spiritual energy of an equivalent amount of P-stone by mass.

Yet despite this astonishingly low efficiency, the Valkyrie Prime kept skyrocketing in strength without hitting its limit!

The Superior Mother was pumping so much spiritual energy into the mech that its presence was undergoing a metamorphosis!

Even Ves found himself taking a step back from the ludicrous intensity of the mech. A part of him was afraid of what he had initiated.

Had he gone overboard?

By the time the Valkyrie Prime's Unending alloy neared saturation, the mech was like a lighthouse in the dark! It stored so much spiritual energy that it was as if the mech's incredibly dense glow had materialized into a physical form!

Ves instinctively knew that there was no way for ordinary pilots to harness this monster. It was like a giant exobeast. If he had to express the empowerment of the Valkyrie Prime in numerical terms, then he estimated that the Unending alloy had absorbed spiritual energy equivalent to around 6300 Ves!

"This isn't even the true limit!"

Ves intuitively sensed that dumping spiritual energy in such a crude fashion might not be the best way to make use of Unending alloy. According to the information he gathered, the statues of the dark gods should have been able to store even more!

If he managed to figure out how to utilize Unending alloy properly, he might be able to store ten or even a hundred times more spiritual energy in this material!

He shuddered at the thought. 6300 Ves was already ridiculous compared to his other mechs. Though Ves was confident in Joshua's abilities as an expert pilot, he could not predict what might happen if the Valkyrie Prime became ten times more horrible!