The Mech Touch

When Gloriana visited her husband's so-called mancave, she expected to be let down by her husband yet again.

Didn't he realize how much effort she was putting into elevating the Larkinson Clan's first expert mechs? These stellar machines would definitely play a pivotal role to the clan for many years to come!

As a mech designer who yearned to design the most powerful mech that embodied all of her ideals, the opportunity to lead not one, but several expert mech design projects with hardly any stringent requirements was extremely precious!

It was even better that she was able to embark on these projects when she was just a young Journeyman.

As long as she successfully completed them, the experiences she gained and the lessons she learned would definitely be able to supercharge her progression to the rank of Senior!

Therefore, she did not hesitate to commit everything she had in order to succeed!

Yet how could she know that her own husband would turn out to become a major stumbling block?

His multiple responsibilities, his scatter-brained mind, his lack of regard towards her priorities and his unmerited optimism all threatened to drag down her projects!

If he didn't play such a pivotal role in providing all of the expert mechs with greater strength, she would have removed him from the projects a long time ago!

"Damn Ves." She muttered under her breath again. "Why can't you be more focused for once? You are so productive when you invest yourself in a pursuit. Why aren't you doing that this time?"

"Miaow."

Clixie felt Gloriana's frustrations and offered her support by swishing her tail.

"Maybe I should tell you to keep watch over my husband. Just claw him whenever he slacks off or gets distracted."

"Miaow."

"He's such a boy!"

When she finally entered her spouse's personal workshop, she adjusted her expression and stormed right at Ves as he was tinkering with some sort of rifle or something.

"Do you feel remorseful now?" She began. "Are you finally feeling guilty at letting us down? Your huge delays are causing all of our projects to run behind schedule. You should feel ashamed for presenting unfinished work to Master Willix when she arrives! If you just did your job properly, we could have shown her something substantial and prove that we aren't squandering this opportunity!"

"..Huh?"

"DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?!"

Both Ves and Lucky looked befuddled at the woman.

"Gloriana… I didn't fail this time. I finished my side project, pretty much. I've succeeded."

"YOU… succeeded?" Gloriana abruptly lost her rhythm.

"Miaow?"

Even Clixie didn't know how to respond to this situation! Shouldn't Ves be groveling and apologizing in front of his wife by now? Why wasn't he following the script this time?

Ves slowly began to grin and pointed his thumb at the array of crystals that he had prepared on the work table. "I've already prepared my samples a couple of hours ago. They're the best that I can come up with so far. The crystals not only satisfy our durability requirements, but also come with a number of really neat effects that are very difficult to replicate through ordinary means. I've become so inspired by them in fact that I have even taken the liberty of drafting some energy rifle designs that take full advantage of their versatility!"

"..."

Gloriana looked as if she had just short-circuited. The conversation swung in a direction that she had not anticipated. Privately, she judged the odds that Ves would be able to complete this side project at less than 1 percent.

In fact, 1 percent was a very generous estimate. Having worked with luminar crystal technology several times due to Ves, she knew quite well that the alien tech was very difficult and abstruse!

It was the signature technology of an extinct alien race.

Every alien race and civilization that had reached the stars excelled at certain techs. Just like how people specialized in different professions and how mech designers specialized in different design philosophies, different intelligent species also chose to pour the greatest emphasis of their technological development in specific directions.

Perhaps their research and development in other fields of science and engineering were merely average, but as long as they poured their efforts into the tech that resonates with them most, they could absolutely surpass the efforts of other, more established species!

This meant that even if the luminars invented their distinctive crystal technology a long time ago, it was not necessarily a given that subsequent races were able to inherit and master all of this unique knowledge.

Under these difficult circumstances, someone who didn't specialize in crystallography or reverse-engineering alien tech like Ves shouldn't have achieved any results at all! In fact, Gloriana had long wanted to convince him to set aside his silly fantasies of empowering his mechs with alien tech and go back to using proper Hexer systems and components.

"You don't believe me?" Ves frowned a bit. "Give me a minute to tweak this demonstration weapon. This is going to be my concept for the Sentry Project's main rifle!"

He turned his back to his wife and quickly picked up his multitool in order to make some hasty adjustments to the rifle he had been working on. It didn't take long for the weapon to be ready for light usage.

Gloriana had to rein in her temper when she saw the rifle. Even though she knew it was just a momentary test object, the weapon had obviously been made in haste and with no regard for longevity. Just the sight of it was enough for her to feel as if her eyes were stabbing needles in her brain!

"What the hell are you doing, Ves?!"

"Hey, you just gave me a single day to come up with a working proof of concept. Don't blame me for lacking time to fabricate a proper rifle!"

"Let's just get this over with so you can take this foul piece of junk out of my sight!"

Ves knew he had to work quickly, so he skipped some safety checks and went straight to prepping the weapon for battle.

He first inserted an energy battery in order to power it up. He then moved over to the sample crystals he prepared.

Each of them looked different in several ways. Due to their different material compositions, they came in different shades. The more orthodox crystals were either transparent or white, while the more exotic ones came in shades of blue and purple.

He manipulated his rifle so that a large chamber opened up in the center. Ves picked up a crystal and slotted it into a cavity. He then rotated a cylinder and placed another crystal into the next cavity that faced the opening.

He repeated this loading action several times until he loaded the internal revolving chamber with six different crystals!

Once he finished loading the rifle, he handed it over to an honor guard, who already moved to the firing range.

Ves confidently moved over to Gloriana's side and pulled her closer to him. He breathed deeply in order to delight his nose with his wife's light and ocean-fresh scent.

"Watch carefully, honey. You're about to witness a good show."

The first beam that emerged from the test rifle was a bog-standard laser beam that melted the dummy bot on the other side of the firing range.

Though there was nothing special about this attack on the surface, Ves waved his hand and activated a projection that showed all kinds of rifle parameters and sensor readings.

Gloriana quickly interpreted the data and widened her eyes!

Compared to the current generation of luminar crystals in use by mech models such as the Crystal Lord Mark II, the Bright Warrior Mark I Version B and most notably the Bright Beam Prime, the leap in improvement was substantial!

"The efficiency of your new crystal is higher!" She gasped. "Hardly any waste heat has been generated by this shot. This rifle can fire continuously for many minutes without growing too hot to handle!"

Ves grinned even wider now that Gloriana finally acknowledged his work. "That's right. While this is merely the least exciting sample crystal that I've prepared, its value is already evident. This is the perfect crystal to use when a battle has dragged out for a time and the rifleman mech has already heated up due to firing lots of damaging beams. As long as the mech still possesses a reserve of energy, it can steadily use it up with constant attacks that won't drain the mech too quickly."

It was actually the perfect crystal to use for mechs designed for attrition warfare. The crystal practically generated no heat at all when put to use. It absorbed thermal energy instead! This allowed it to serve as a heat sink for the rifle, allowing it to be used more intensively without worrying about pushing it to breaking point!

Gloriana looked enamored by all of the possibilities, but she soon grew a bit suspicious.

"Nothing can be this good without a price. What are the downsides to this crystal?"

Ves sheepishly shrugged. "The crystals that I have prepared today all suffer the same faults. They seem to be common deficiencies that affect all crystals derived from luminar technology. First, though these crystals are harder than the ones I've made before, all of the energy pouring through the internal circuits causes them to wear out over time. The more intensively they are used, the faster they deteriorate. Perhaps they might have to be replaced after a single battle!"

"That doesn't sound so bad. They can be used like ammunition but for energy rifles."

He shook his head. "This is not a practical solution for every mech. This is their second fault. If scaled for mechs, these crystals are powerful enough to be employed in custom mechs and expert mechs, but they can cost as much as several mechs put together! They also have to be made by hand by me, since I am employing special techniques to make them. Mass producing them is pretty much out of the question."

Gloriana grew a lot less enthused once she heard that. The innovations that Ves had accomplished were very significant, but if their application was too limited, then they could forget about popularizing it in all of their products!

"Are there any other faults?"

"There are some, but I'll just write that in a report. Let's proceed to the next test shots. My rifle can discharge much more exciting attacks."

The next attack was a positron beam. Compared to a standard beam, this one hit harder and had a considerably faster propagation speed.

While positron beams already traveled to their targets at a significant fraction of the speed of light, any additional speed was absolutely useful for long-range combat in space!

The third attack was the light beam that the luminars pretty much treated as their most favorable attack method. It dealt more damage than a typical laser beam but not that much.

However, after repeated observations, Ves discovered the true value of this attack mode.

"What's the secret behind this odd light beam?" Gloriana asked.

"While this beam is effective against material targets, it is also effective against non-material targets. In fact, I think that is actually what they are mainly used for. This is an all-round attack method that is very suitable for hurting intangible opponents that can't be harmed with conventional attacks."

"This… what does that mean, exactly?"

"Don't you realize the implications?!" Ves excitedly turned to his wife. "This light beam attack can effectively hurt powerful entities like the dark gods! Though a single beam won't actually be able to hurt them that much, what about a hundred? What about a thousand?"

In theory, they could even be used to hurt his design spirits, though in practice that was difficult to accomplish. Spiritual entities ordinarily resided in a different realm where material attacks could never reach. There were also many other ways for intangible existences to avoid getting hit by such straightforward attacks.

However, against more substantial opponents, the value of these light beam attacks might be much greater.

"These light beam attacks might also be a lot more effective at harming expert mechs!" Ves revealed his most explosive guess.

Gloriana looked completely shocked.

"What?! Do you realize what kind of claim you are making?!"