The Mech Touch

Ever since Ves created Blinky, he developed a hope that he would finally have a way to utilize and solve the hidden dangers of the high-energy energy cycle in his chest.

Though it initially sounded amazing to possess a special organ that was capable of producing the same type of energy as one of the most powerful sentient species in the galaxy, the problem was that Ves was still a human by nature.

Not only that, he was also a mech designer, not a gun-toting warrior!

Therefore, the Worclaw energy running through his body posed a serious long-term threat to his health. Who knew what kind of sick and crazy ideas Dr. Jutland had in mind when he developed his crazy organ.

With the man's death, Ves was forced to explore his unnatural capabilities on his own. This was difficult because Dr. Jutland's inventions were so far beyond conventional biotech science that most doctors simply didn't know what to do with them. The main organ that had somehow taken over his heart was such a giant puzzle that the LRA could probably spent centuries trying to figure out its depths!

This was why he was glad that Blinky and his Worclaw crystal was able to interact with the energy cycle in some way. As long as there was a solution, it didn't matter if his companion spirit had to start from scratch. He was grateful that he was finally starting to move forward on this issue.

"I didn't think I would crash head-first into a bulkhead, though." Ves muttered as his guards slowly relaxed.

Ves stepped closer and studied Blinky's exhausted form. When he tried to sense what his spiritual cat had gone through, he only got a confusing mess of unexplainable thoughts and emotions. Whatever his cat did was largely instinctual and devoid of systematic methods.

In other words, Blinky had just blindly channeled the Worclaw crystal in some way and let nature take its course!

The result of this stupid and reckless approach was apparent. If Ves was the one who became the vessel to all of that expended energy, then maybe his body would have smacked against the side of his personal office compartment!

Unlike Blinky whose body was entirely spiritual and therefore not subject to inertia, Ves suspected that he would not be able to make a clean person-sized hole through the solid metal barriers!

It depended on what exactly happened when Blinky turned into a cat-sized projectile. Due to Blinky's spiritual form, his body should have phased through the bulkhead without damaging anything material.

However, as Ves tentatively brushed his fingers alongside the torn metal, Blinky had somehow been able to affect physical matter.

It was unlikely that spiritual energy could accomplish such a drastic result. Worclaw energy was the second energy type that Blinky was able to harness, so this was the only answer that made sense.

Ves knew he had made a major discovery.

Spiritual energy was good at affecting the immaterial, but not that great at affecting physical reality. While he had witnessed a lot of powerful spiritual entities do so anyway, he was nothing like his mother or a dark god.

Worclaw energy therefore provided him with a possible answer on how he could affect the material realm without relying on any external sources.

"It's just…"

Ves sighed. This was yet another useless ability. He did not need to possess the capability to pierce through mech armor by using his own companion spirit as a projectile.

If he wanted to shoot something down, he could always rely on his trusty Amastendira.

Since Ves had disavowed himself from getting embroiled in the middle of dangerous crises, there was no way that he would ever be in a position where he would send out Blinky in this fashion. He had an army of bodyguards and tens of thousands of mech pilots between him and any enemies that wished to do him harm!

"Good job, Blinky." Ves smiled and stroked his purple cat's head. "You can go back and rest now."

Mrow…

When the companion spirit returned to his home and fell into slumber, Ves spent a brief moment of time analyzing the brief event. He pulled up the security footage and any relevant sensor readings and calculated the attack power based on the physical damage dealt to the bulkhead.

Though the interior of the Spirit of Bentheim was not made to be as tough as actual mech armor plating, certain sections enjoyed more protection than others. The bridge and engineering bays were good examples. Their importance was so critical to the functioning of the ship that it was worth it to splurge a lot of money on wrapping them up with thick and strong protection!

Ves knew for a fact that the grand staterooms were also luxuriously protected. In fact, after he and Gloriana claimed one of themselves, the crew had quietly bolstered its defenses and made sure that anyone who wanted to attack the clan patriarch in his moment of weakness would have a very hard time getting through all of the layers!

"And now, a single cat nearly managed to burst through all of that in an instant!"

"Meow."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten about you as well, Lucky. No barrier can stop you from going through."

"Meow!" The gem cat arrogantly lifted his head.

In truth, Lucky had a harder time going through energy barriers than physical matter. If every point of entry was surrounded by active energy shields, then Lucky might not be able to go through depending on the energy levels!

Ves wondered if Blinky also suffered a weakness against energy shields. He suspected this might not be the case considering the very clear evidence.

"I should get someone to fix this hole."

In the end, Ves dismissed this brief attempt as a preview into the usage of Worclaw energy. From all of the amazing stories that humanity had documented about the mighty Alshyr race, he knew for certain that there were a lot more sophisticated ways to channel this potent energy type!

It was similar to how he started off with spiritual engineering. He started off with the X-Factor. Then he moved on to creating rudimentary design spirits. Now he had blossomed to making highly impactful spiritual constructs spiritual networks!

The only factor that made him feel a bit depressed was that he was at the starting line when it came to exploiting Worclaw energy. It would probably take years or decades for him, or rather Blinky, to develop any useful applications.

Fortunately, Ves himself did not need to spend much time and effort on this matter. Blinky could figure most of it out himself. Even if his companion spirit mainly had to resort to trial and error and using himself as his test subject, all of this would eventually bear fruit!

Once he wrapped up his brief analysis, he left his office and went down to the design lab. Though Gloriana looked upset that Ves was slightly tardy again, she soon went back to business.

"Out of the six expert mech design projects that we are working on, we agreed we would prioritize the Disruptor Project first. It's the smallest expert mech and its compact dimensions means that it takes less work to complete it. I've just finalized the final draft for its design after Master Willix got back to me with her proposal on how to integrate the resonating exotics into the expert mech."

"Oh? Let me take a look."

Ves had observed expert mechs before. He even had the opportunity to study partial or complete ones as well. His gains were limited, though. While he was able to figure out the more conventional design aspects of these powerful machines, the ones related to resonating materials and other abnormal elements were no different from black boxes in his eyes.

When Gloriana projected a fairly detailed and thorough draft design, he meticulously scanned through every wireframe detail.

He already recognized the changes that Master Willix had made. He was surprised that she managed to limit her influence on the design to a very high degree.

As a rational mech designer, she possessed the capability to dampen her passion to a very low degree. One of the consequences was that Master Willix was able to tinker with any mech design without imposing her design philosophy on the work.

This was quite impressive as Masters were usually too strong to eliminate their powerful influence! Just touching a mech design a few times was enough for them to leave an unremovable imprint behind!

Ves wasn't here to study this method, though, so he quickly turned his attention to the design elements of the draft design.

It largely matched up with the earlier drafts that Gloriana had made with input from others.

The only major difference was that a considerable proportion of the original structural materials used in the design were replaced by resonating substitutes.

Perfidious Steel featured prominently in the inner structure of Venerable Tusa's future expert mech. This treacherous-sounding material would enable the expert mech to evade a lot of long-ranged attacks by distorting the perception of its actual coordinates!

"What the eye can see is a lie." Ves muttered to himself. "This is a powerful ability, though a costly one as well."

The cost of Perfidious Steel was not the highest, and only a couple of hundred kilograms were enough to impart the Disruptor Project with a powerful resonance ability.

However, the availability of this resonating alloy was rather low. Only specific companies made this product, which meant that Perfidious Steel could only be found in the areas where those companies operated!

This was a common downside to many resonating alloys. Special niche products were often localized because they weren't developed and marketed by huge trans-galactic corporations. It was extremely hard to push any product onto the galactic market so most smaller companies didn't even try.

Besides, the raw materials required to make specialty products like Perfidious Steel were rarely available in every star sector.

"I'm a bit concerned about the robustness of the inner structure of our expert light skirmisher." Ves spoke after he had made some estimates based on the draft he was looking at. "Perfidious Steel is not the hardest or toughest material. It is actually weaker than the Breyer alloy and all of the other materials that make up the internal architecture of our mech."

His wife pointed her finger towards some key components. "We have some key structural components made out of Unending alloy to make sure the mech won't collapse too easily on the inside."

"I can see that, but this is a limited solution, honey. The fact of the matter is that our light mech is weaker on the inside than before. It used to be a hard-boiled egg. Now it has turned into a soft-boiled egg."

Gloriana looked unfettered." You don't think I know that? I don't like this tradeoff either, but we have to live with it. Don't forget that the Disruptor Project mainly relies on evasion to avoid getting hurt. Enhancing this aspect at the cost of suffering more damage if it receives a powerful knock is worth it most of the time. I even took the trouble of making detailed calculations based on all kinds of battle scenarios. I discovered that Master Willix has struck the right balance."

Was it worth it to sacrifice 10 percent defense in exchange for 50 percent better evasion? What about giving 20 percent of the former in exchange for 150 percent of the latter?

These were the kind of tradeoffs that they had to contemplate when working with a resonating exotic like Perfidious Steel.

In the end, Ves did not object to this implementation. Master Willix herself was responsible for establishing the current balance, and she must have good reasons to select this particular compromise.

The implementation of the other key exotic was not as controversial. Bissonat paired well with the daggers. Unending alloy still remained as the main material for the weapons, but combining it with Bissonat allowed Venerable Tusa to empower his blades with a very sharp cutting edge!

"Ketis will be happy to work on the daggers." Ves smiled.