The Mech Touch

The experiment succeeded!

Previously, the Penitent Sisters relied entirely on the Superior Mother to supply the energy needed to power their battle formations.

There were many limitations to this process. Normal mech pilots weren't able to endure the strain of channeling the Superior Mother's power for an extended amount of time. The conversion of energy was also very inefficient due to several other factors.

Now, Ves managed to slip in a prime mech that was piloted by an expert pilot. The extra addition added a second source of power. Even though this source mostly consisted of spiritual energy that originated from the Superior Mother to begin with, Venerable Joshua was able to convert it into prime resonance, which directly empowered the battle formation!

All of this sounded fairly complicated, but the result was very clear!

Even Ves felt his hair raising as he observed the projection of the V-shaped wave of death passing through in space!

It was fortunate that Ves had specifically instructed the battle formation to unleash its manifested power away from the combined fleet!

Ves tried his best to ignore the incoming calls and messages that expressed alarm at the wave of death that had gradually dissipated in the distance.

Instead, he and Gloriana eagerly analyzed the data. While they did not capture the full majesty of the resonance-empowered battle formation, they still noted several remarkable clues!

During the time that Task Force Predator roamed the Nyxian Gap, Ves had ordered his mech pilots to engage their battle formations many times. He collected a sufficient amount of data relating to the Penitent Sister battle formations.

He roughly knew how much power a battle formation formed by 80 Penitent Sister mechs was supposed to exert.

The addition of the Valkyrie Prime to the battle network instantly increased the output off the battle formation by several times!

And this was Venerable Joshua's first attempt!

At this time, Joshua was barely trying to get accustomed to the Superior Mother. If he continued to develop his relationship with the Superior Mother, empathize with the Penitent Sisters and become more accustomed to piloting the Valkyrie Prime, it was very much possible for the battle formation to unleash even more power!

"And that is just with 81 mechs! What if there is double the amount of mechs?"

The power unleashed by the battle formation today was not indicative of the power it could unleash tomorrow. Ves was very confident that his mech pilots could achieve better results with practice!

Of course, there was definitely a price for this. As Ves rewatched the footage of the Valkyrie mechs surging forward while generating a powerful energy silhouette, he could easily imagine the abundance of power generated by the battle formation!

Soon enough, the mechs flew back to their motherships. The Valkyrie Prime along with a dozen Valkyrie Redeemers flew back to the Spirit of Bentheim and entered the hangar bay.

Once the mechs shut down, the mech pilots emerged out of the cockpits with dazed and wondrous looks.

Captain Vidovic and her fellow Penitent Sisters no longer looked skeptical or indignant at Venerable Joshua. Their eyes only conveyed their respect and astonishment towards the Larkinson expert pilot!

As Ves observed this unspoken interaction, he recalled that battle networks worked by tying the minds of every mech pilot together.

Just like the neural networks of Master Huron, the mech pilots that took part in them did not necessarily share all of their thoughts. However, they were not completely independent either.

Instead, the network caused them to form some kind of mental collective that allowed them to coordinate their actions and move in unison. At least that was what Ves surmised from Master Huron's work.

Battle networks were different from the original source. To be honest, Ves still did not understand the intricacies of this recent invention.

He was glad that one of his hopes came true. Though he needed to perform some follow-up tests to confirm today's result, he was already sure of the truth. Prime mechs were capable of supercharging battle formations.

By feeding prime resonance to the battle formation, the combination supercharged the manifestation! More energy produced more power, it was that simple!

Of course, Ves still needed to investigate how much energy the Valkyrie Prime expended to unleash its ominous attack. He was under no illusion that the earlier attack came for free.

Only fools believed in free energy.

So far, every phenomena related to spirituality and his design philosophy abided by the law of conservation of energy. It didn't matter how wondrous or magical the transformations appeared.

Unless proven otherwise, even gods had to abide by the fundamental laws of reality!

As Ves approached the Valkyrie Prime, he immediately noted that it was a lot easier for him to get close.

While his mental strength was more than capable of withstanding the pressure of the Valkyrie Prime at its height, its sudden weakening was very noticeable.

The decrease in glow intensity was too big. This means that a single outburst from the battle formation consumed a lot of prime resonance!

How much of the energy supplied by the Valkyrie Prime empowered the attack and how much of it went to waste?

While Ves couldn't judge the efficiency of the process due to lack of data and understanding, he guessed that the efficiency must be pretty low. Despite the impressive power of the battle formation, he did not forget that he had basically cobbled it together with poorly-understood means.

His battle networks were too rudimentary. Though he was determined to refine them over time, at this stage it was too difficult to pioneer this new invention.

He idly wished he could steal Master Huron's research. Though the Fridayman Master's specialty wasn't directly related to his own, Ves was sure he could steal more good ideas if he had access to the core trade secrets!

"How are you feeling, Joshua?" Ves asked as he reached the expert pilot's side.

"I'm tired." Venerable Joshua replied. "I'm excited as well. I can't explain what I just experienced. It was magical. For a couple of minutes, I felt as if I was at the center of a group of soldiers. Those Penitent Sisters.. they don't think like normal people. It was a bit difficult for me to get accustomed to their personalities. Still, once we managed to get along with each other, we succeeded in our mission! We all exerted our utmost to unleash that strange attack!"

Ves smiled and patted the younger man's back. "That's great to hear. Before you take a shower and freshen up, I'd like you to write down your feelings and personal experiences. I need to know everything that went through our mind while your memories of the moment are still fresh."

The expert pilot did not look forward to this chore. While he wasn't exhausted to the point of collapsing on the deck, his earlier exertion was not light!

"Very well…"

As Joshua moved to a nearby terminal, Ves stayed in place and took a deep look at the Valkyrie Prime.

Physically, the mech was fine. The short deployment into space hardly affected the integrity of the machine.

Spiritually, it was a different matter. When Ves concentrated his mind, he perceived more clearly that the Valkyrie Prime's Unending alloy had lost a significant chunk of spiritual energy.

Ves found it difficult to judge exactly how much strength it consumed. Making this observation by feel was as primitive as judging the length of a building by eye. Properly speaking, he needed to develop a spiritual measuring instrument.

"That's not something that I can make at this time." Ves shook his head.

He had no choice but to go by feel. Right now, he tentatively judged that the Valkyrie Prime had weakened to around 4000 Ves.

"That's a steep price!" Ves winced.

That was worse than he expected. It basically meant that the Valkyrie Prime was burning an immense amount of spiritual energy every time it amplified a battle formation!

Was it worth it? Ves wasn't sure.

In pitched battles where a loss threatened the existence of the Larkinson Clan, then it was definitely useful.

In practice sessions or skirmishes against riffraff? Expending so much energy was incredibly wasteful.

"In the end, it's still a trump card." He concluded with a sigh. "The strongest means should be reserved for the most desperate situations."

That was a lesson that Ves had learned in the Nyxian Gap Campaign. The pirates his task force confronted in the region all pulled out one card after another. His forces suffered far more losses than he anticipated at the start due to the inability to account for the hidden options the pirates had at their disposal.

After Ves stepped close and placed his palm on the foot of the Valkyrie Prime, he confirmed his earlier judgement. The Unending alloy had emptied considerably.

Unless the mech pilot was able to control the amount of energy being expended, Ves would have to get used to paying a significant price to achieve a strong effect on the battlefield.

Ves silently contacted the Superior Mother. He briefly felt her presence drawing close.

The Valkyrie Prime soon regained its strength. The Superior Mother effortly filled up its tank until it returned to the maximum level of more than 6000 Ves.

He wasn't too worried about the energy expenditure of the Superior Mother. With the entire Hexadric Hegemony backing her up, she was not going to run out of spiritual feedback anytime soon!

"Of course, it's only the lowest quality of energy." He muttered.

His concern lied instead to other prime mechs. Not every design spirit was as flush with spiritual energy as the Superior Mother.

Certain design spirits such as Lufa and the Golden Cat were still paupers in comparison. Telling them to fill up a prime mech comparable to the Valkyrie Prime would likely weaken them to a noticeable degree!

"There's another concern." He muttered.

The Superior Mother owed her luxurious position to the existence of the Hexadric Hegemony.

If the Hexers ever lost the Komodo War, then it was a given that the Superior Mother would lose a lot of spiritual feedback!

"That will be a disaster!"

Limited energy was one of the greatest limitations that held humanity and every other race from overpowering their rivals.

Ves once heard that the Big Two managed to steal the Fire Scroll from the Five Scrolls Compact.

If that was true, he had to admit that the CFA and MTA chose the most suitable Sacred Scroll!

As long as they unlocked the secrets to generating more energy, they could directly increase the strength of their warships, weapons and other means!

In fact, Ves was certain that this had happened at the end of the Age of Conquest. Otherwise, how could the Big Two possibly rise in power to the point where they were able to suppress the Terrans and Rubarthans?

As Ves finished inspecting the Valkyrie Prime, he turned around and left the range of its glow. He returned to Gloriana as she finished packaging the data.

"I think we're ready to develop some other prime mechs." Ves stated.

"Hm?" His wife turned around. "Isn't that premature? We still need to perform more tests on the Valkyrie Prime."

"Unless we do something drastically different, I don't expect the tests to produce different results. I've confirmed enough theories and know all I need to know to develop our other prime mechs."

"I do have to admit that the Valkyrie Prime is very powerful when used to this effect."

Ves suddenly had a new thought!

It was so astonishing that he froze for a few seconds!

"Gloriana?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Do you know whether different forms of resonance can stack?"

"Huh?"

"Think about it." He became more excited. "What if it is possible to make a prime version of an expert mech?! According to my theoretical framework, prime resonance does not necessarily conflict with other forms of resonance. Do you know what this means? It might be possible to design a prime expert mech that is capable of combining the strengths of two forms of resonance at the same time!"

This was a radical idea! Gloriana looked stunned as she tried to imagine what Ves had described. Was it possible for prime resonance to overlap with true resonance in the same mech?

She had no idea!