The Mech Touch

"So what did you talk about with Master Willix earlier?" Gloriana asked as Ves returned to the design lab after departing from the Scarlet Rose.

"Woof."

"I beg your pardon?!" His wife sent a glare in his direction.

"Miaow!" Clixie hissed as she sat up from Gloriana's lap.

"Erm, calm down! I was just distracted for a moment!" Ves raised his hands in innocence. "We had a lengthy talk about my new assignment. She wants me to do something for her. In return, she'll gift us a number of valuable materials as well as a lot of MTA merits depending on my performance."

Gloriana instantly forgot about getting barked at earlier. She rose up from her chair and ran over to Ves until her hands clung onto her uniform.

"Tell me more!"

Her lavender perfume already wafted into his nose, causing him to forget about the more unpleasant aspects of his conversation with Master Willix. He agreed to his wife's request and sat down in order to give her a very brief summary, leaving out many details but conveying enough to get her up to speed.

In the meantime, Lucky and Clixie cuddled together and began to lick each other's faces.

"Meow~"

"Miaow~"

"I see. Her request is not light by any means." Gloriana became a bit more serious. "She must have her reasons for approaching you. How confident are you in your ability to turn these random MTA mech pilots into expert pilots?"

Ves hesitated. "It.. depends. Certain individuals have a 'talent' in this aspect. If the mech pilots that Master Willix has selected all possess this critical quality, then I am fully confident that I can push half of them to expert candidate and maybe expert pilot within five years. The issue is that the talent to become an expert candidate is actually quite rare."

He was quite afraid that Willix would send twenty hopeless cases to him. If none of the MTA mech pilots possessed spiritual potential, then Ves would have to put a lot more effort into his experiments in order to achieve a breakthrough on this front!

"So you can't determine your chances until you actually meet the mech pilots, is that right?"

He nodded. "I don't think I'll get lucky, though. I think that mech pilots with the necessary talent are already participating in better training programs. They're stronger and more skilled on average and they learn faster. Anyone who is unlucky enough to be sent outside the MTA in order to train with us will likely be those who have already tried and failed to an extent."

He was quite confident about this conclusion. The MTA was not a slouch when it came to training its own mech pilots. Master Willix would have never turned to him if her own organization could already solve this problem in house.

Gloriana was already thinking about the implications of this mission.

"Have you realized that this might be a repeat deal for you?" She pointed out.

"Huh?"

"Think about it, Ves. Let's just assume that you have succeeded, not just once, but several times. It is already a success if just one or two out of twenty manage to break through. The result won't look very remarkable, though. You may have beaten the statistical odds, but it could always be chalked up to a coincidence. Yet what if a fourth of the MTA mech pilots manage to undergo apotheosis? If we are able to turn 5 out of 20 into expert pilots, then our conversion ratio is insane! This is no longer a coincidence. This is proof that we have an effective formula!"

Ves placed his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, calm down. Don't get too excited. Have you ever thought about what a huge target we'll be painting on our backs once the MTA and the rest of the galaxy finds out that we can transform 25 percent of all mech pilots into expert pilots? Even if the mech pilots trained by the MTA are a cut above the rest, the Association's own conversion ratio shouldn't be higher than one in several thousand!"

If he assumed that the MTA had no way to induce spiritual potential in its own people, then it was impossible for the mechers to form too many expert pilots. They were limited by the same constraints as everyone else.

In fact, even Ves couldn't do anything about it unless he resumed his radical and fatal experiments with the Aspect of Transcendence.

While he had the guts to run these experiments on random human criminals, now that he returned to the fleet, it was very hard for him to obtain a large batch of adequate human test subjects!

Gloriana looked disappointed. "Master Willix needs us to succeed. We shouldn't hold back too much. So what if we succeed 5 out of 20 times? We can just chalk it up to our extreme training program! Maybe you can make it so that the 15 failures have all died in the process. As long as we pretend that there is a very high likelihood of death attached to our method, I bet people will become a lot less interested in our methods!"

"You underestimate the greed that people harbor for a method that can reliably produce expert pilots." Ves shook his head. "Manpower is one of the cheapest and most abundant resources in the galaxy. It is well worth the price to exchange the lives of 75 percent of all of the mech pilots in a batch in order to turn the remaining 25 percent into expert pilots. The individual combat prowess of the latter is at least a hundred times greater than the former!"

This effectively resulted in a 2500 percent increase in total combat strength! Of course, the higher-ups responsible for the new expert pilots also had to invest a lot of money, effort and resources into supplying them all with expert mechs, but that was not a big problem for huge organizations like the MTA or the first-rate superstates.

None of the people at the top cared about the plight of the many failed mech pilots who died over the course of the grueling training program.

"Then what will you do, Ves?"

"I'm still thinking about that." He said. "It depends on how much Willix can shield me from suspicion. I don't mind handing her 10 expert pilots so that I can collect 5 million MTA merits as long as she can take care of the rest. Fortunately, the mech pilots she is dispatching to us will remain incognito while they are serving alongside my men. It's not politically convenient if everyone becomes aware that we are hosting these high-status individuals."

Though Ves would not object to that outcome since that meant he could protect himself by using the MTA's reputation as his shield, Master Willix did not allow for that. This assignment already breached the MTA's neutrality rules to some extent. It was only acceptable if few people knew about it, but it was another story if it became widespread.

This was why Master Willix had to put a lot of effort into disguising the identities of the MTA guest pilots. The goal was to turn them into expert pilots, and experiencing actual combat was the best way to stimulate their potential. Who would have the guts to fight them if every enemy learnt that they were spilling mecher blood?

It was too bad that Master Willix couldn't send a batch of 500 mech pilots to the Larkinson Clan instead. It would have been much easier to get away with turning all 20 politically-important mech pilots into expert pilots if that was the case.

Yet transferring 500 mech pilots of unknown origins to the Larkinson Clan on a temporary basis was too eye-catching. It was too easy to attract snooping investigators who would definitely be able to expose his improper dealings.

In the end, Ves failed to settle on a strategy. He decided to defer his decisions on this assignment until he met the mech pilots in person and learned what they were capable of. It was too premature for him to make an elaborate plan at this point.

After he informed his wife of his new mission, he briefly spoke with General Verle over the comm in order to make the appropriate arrangements.

He clearly couldn't blend in the incoming MTA mech pilots with the rest of his mech forces. The newcomers would have to join the Larkinson Clan in order to do so, but that was unacceptable.

The point was to produce expert pilots who would all be loyal to their patrons in the MTA! He wouldn't be able to deliver the desired results if all of the individuals in question turned into committed Larkinsons!

"This is not an easy request to fulfill, sir." General Verle replied aboard the Graveyard. "Our armed forces have all been set up on the assumption that we would be fighting side-by-side with our own clansmen. Our common identity is one of our greatest sources of strength on the battlefield. We risk breaking this implicit trust and camaraderie if we sprinkle random outsiders within their ranks."

"I haven't heard any complaints about Venerable Davia Stark."

"She's an expert pilot, sir. Our men trust in her sincerity and she is an invaluable helper to us due to her ranged prowess."

Despite the general's skepticism, he agreed to deal with this problem. Perhaps this wouldn't be the last time that the Larkinson Clan would temporarily play host foreign fighters.

After he ended his call, Ves remained in thought. He knew that the greatest challenge to this mission was to succeed in implanting spiritual potential into the minds of mech pilots who were lacking in this aspect.

As long as he made it to this point, everything else was manageable!

"I guess I'll have to spend more time with the Aspects of Transcendence."

He did not dare to make use of the fourth and most mysterious statue of Lufa since he brought the entire batch back to his personal workshop. So many heads and bodies had exploded in the presence of its glow that Ves had no intention to subject any clansmen to this treatment!

Yet now that it became more urgent than ever to get this magical process to work without killing anyone, Ves felt a much greater urgency to solve this intractable gridlock.

A potentially-brilliant idea entered his mind now that he was looking at this problem from a fresh perspective.

"If I continue to perform the same experiments as before, it's highly likely that I'll have to burn a lot of excess biomass." He concluded. "After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

This famous quote was very relevant to this particular experiment. While Ves tried his best to tweak the variables for each test, the fact of the matter was that he hadn't changed the most significant variables.

What if he changed the nature of the glow? What if he altered it by changing or upgrading its source?

"What if I upgrade Lufa?" He voiced his great idea.

It had a lot of potential! Previously, Ves never entertained this suggestion because he simply didn't have the resources to afford the upgrade.

His circumstances had changed now. With five vials of high-grade serum in his possession, he had ample quantities of one of the key ingredients that could qualitatively upgrade an design spirit!

What was even better was that the birth of Blinky meant that his own energy limitations were a relic of the past. He had access to multiple sources of excess spiritual energy. This supplied him with more spiritual energy that matches his attributes than he could use up! There would be absolutely no problem with merging any additional ingredients into Lufa!

The main challenge therefore was to find the right ingredients and come up with a workable plan to evolve Lufa into the desired direction.

His ultimate goal was to make the Aspect of Transcendence viable!

"If I can make this happen, then this mission wouldn't be a challenge for me to complete at all! In fact, I have to try my best to make it harder than it looks!"

A lot of merits would assuredly land in his pockets if he could pull this off!