The Mech Touch

Venerable Joshua Larkinson enjoyed a long period of calm after the expeditionary fleet departed from the Grand Loxic Republic.

With no crisis looming over the heads of the Larkinsons, Venerable Joshua and many other Larkinsons felt free to devote their time on more personal and less acute matters.

It was too bad that Joshua wasn't able to spend much time with Ketis as of late. Her long shifts at the design lab left her with little time to keep him company. She promised to open up her schedule once she was done with working on the expert mech designs, but that was many months away.

Last he heard, the Design Department was making very brisk progress on the Disruptor Project, but that came at the expense of slowing down the work on the other expert mech designs.

"I can't tell you when your expert mech will be ready." Ketis told him one day. "Gloriana hasn't forgotten about you, but she is adamant on using the Disruptor Project as a trial for all of the new stuff we are trying to implement in the expert mech designs. Once Venerable Tusa gets his expert mech, we'll work hard to realize the other projects. It will take at least half a year but likely longer for you to get your turn. It doesn't help that your expert hero mech is one of the more complex expert mech designs. Ves still insists on powering your expert mech up with mounted wargear and that will certainly cause some delays."

Joshua was a rather upbeat and jovial man most of the time, but there were moments where his patience wore thin.

"I've spent too much time without an expert mech. Is there any way for you guys to hurry up? Perhaps you should hire more mech designers."

"Our clan is already preparing to recruit another batch of assistant mech designers, but we can't just throw them into the design lab and tell them to work on an expert mech design straight away. It will take time for them to get up to speed."

Her tone made it clear that she did not think highly of this decision. The Design Department should have recruited the next batch of assistants a long time ago.

The high workload of the mech designers working on the expert mech design projects was a reflection of the shortage of manpower in the department. While Ketis was not complaining about all of the responsibilities she had to assume, she would have been able to make smoother progress if she could delegate more trivial work assignments to one of the design teams.

Ketis did not complain too often about her work, though. Most of the time, she exuded a sense of fulfillment when she described how she was able to contribute to mech designs in a much more powerful way than before.

"To be honest, the expert mech designs aren't the best testbeds for my new abilities." She told him. "I should have explored my capabilities on a simpler mech design first. The timing of my breakthrough wasn't great and I can't afford to stand by while everyone else is putting their all into our current projects. This is also a very rare opportunity for me to be able to contribute something significant in an expert mech design. I would be a fool to skip this opportunity!"

Joshua held her arm and patted her firm hand. "Just do what you need to do. I support you and I believe in you. As a Swordmaster, I can't think of a better person to work on the melee capabilities of my expert mech design."

His girlfriend grinned. "Hehe. While I haven't been able to achieve a lot of progress on your mech, my work on the Disruptor Project is quite optimistic. I'm on track to give Venerable Tusa an extra edge to his attacks. The only problem is that he has to learn a new knife fighting style."

"Oh."

Ketis playfully bumped his chest. "The same goes for you as well. You need to learn a specific sword style in order to make the most out of my design philosophy."

"I'm not a Swordmaster, Ketis. Don't you know that? I still haven't come close to beating you in a spar." He complained.

"Have you been slacking off in your training now that I'm not there to instruct in person?"

"No! I'm still sticking with the repetitions that you've assigned to me, but I don't think I have developed a greater affinity for swordsmanship. Even though some people think that expert pilots and Swordmasters are interchangeable, I don't think I will ever be able to develop or adopt a sword style that meets your approval."

Though expert pilots had a tendency to develop their own extraordinary fighting styles, their moves were incomparable to the ones that adhered to the rich and prosperous swordsmanship tradition of the Heavensword Association.

Venerable Joshua did not possess any notable affinity to swords, so he failed in meeting the basic demand to master any empowered sword style.

Every Swordmaster and every expert pilot of the Heavensword Association regarded swords as their life! This was an outlook that Joshua could never adopt.

Fortunately, Ketis already took this into account. As a genuine Swordmaster, how could she be ignorant of her boyfriend's lack of affinity towards her favorite weapon?

Though Joshua's lack of talent in this area was disappointing to her, everyone was different. She didn't hook up with him because he was a fellow aficionado of swords.

In the greater scheme of things, a large proportion of her mechs would probably be used by other people who lacked the passion exhibited by the Swordmaidens and the Heavensworders.

While Ketis mainly wanted to focus on servicing the needs of true swordsmen, she couldn't let people like Joshua in the lurch.

This was why she worked hard to invent a method that anyone could take advantage of as long as they met a few requirements.

"I instructed you to practice those basic sword moves every day for a reason, Joshua." She explained. "Your foundation is decent, but it needs to be better for what I have in store. I think you're ready for the next step by now."

Joshua looked skeptical. "I don't think I will do any better in adopting one of those weird sword styles."

"That's not the point. I've already given up on that since it clearly won't work for you. What I intend to do with you is different. Let me explain this by asking a question. What is the reason behind your failure?"

"I don't have the heart for swordsmanship."

"Correct." She nodded. "Now how do you think we can make up for this shortcoming?"

"Uhh…" Joshua scratched his head. He completely lacked the prestige of an expert pilot at the moment. "I don't know. I guess you're trying to power up my expert mech in some way."

"Any idiot can make that guess, but that's not good enough. Think. What kind of method can I employ to allow you to wield an empowered sword style without possessing the right heart?"

"..."

Ketis grew annoyed as her boyfriend failed to come up with a guess.

"Do you really have no idea, Joshua?!"

"I'm not the mech designer here! How am I supposed to know? I always leave the complicated technical stuff to you and Ves!"

She sighed. "I don't have a technical answer in mind. The logic is much simpler than you think, Joshua. First, what did teacher teach you about mechs?"

"That's easy. Mechs are alive. Well, they have the potential to become alive, at least. I can easily sense the difference when I compare a living mech to an ordinary machine."

Ketis nodded. "That is what I've learned as well. Mechs can become alive. This living quality can even be shaped in different ways. Ves is particularly good at this. He can shape life as if he is molding clay. I can't do that, but I have developed my own ideas about how to nurture the living aspect of a mech. According to my current theories, I think I may be able to influence the young and growing life within a mech or mech design to learn one of my sword styles. My influence as a Swordmaster is so powerful that whatever style I am channeling during my design sessions will definitely be absorbed by the mech design in question."

Joshua was able to follow her train of thought without much issue at the beginning. It was only when she reached the second half of her explanation that it began to turn into a weird direction.

Although he understood her words, he wasn't sure he comprehended her meaning. "Are you saying…"

Ketis grinned wider. "I'm not kidding, Joshua! While this is not my preferred means to improve a mech design, it is still a powerful way to boost my work! If everything works as intended, then mech pilots like you don't need to master any sword style! You just have to learn the basics and rely on my machines to do the heavy lifting! You don't need to develop your own sword intent or sword will. The mech I've designed will already come with one pre-installed! As long as you execute the form of the moves, the mech you synchronize with will complete them in a beautiful fashion!"

Once Joshua comprehended Ketis' outlandish idea, he became completely shocked! He never imagined that this was even possible. He long admired and envied the powerful empowered sword abilities that his girlfriend and her band of sword followers were able to execute. Their magical moves were straight out of a fantasy drama. It would have been extremely helpful to him if he could replicate their abilities while piloting a mech.

He initially thought he lacked the talent to fulfill this dream, but it turned out that his girlfriend might be able to implement a relatively easy solution!

"This is cheating! Won't this disrupt the mech market in a much greater way than our patriarch has done with his glows?"

Ketis shook her head. "It's not as easy as you think. How can you gain so much power for free? I'm just being overly optimistic about turning a living mech into a Swordmaster. There's no way it will be that easy. At best, I can turn a mech into a sword initiate, but it is much more probable that it will be even weaker than that. I'm not making other Swordmasters redundant anytime soon."

"Oh. Does that mean I will hardly be able to notice any difference?"

"Who can say?" Ketis shrugged. "I think the results of my approach will be a lot more powerful when it is combined with an expert mech and expert pilot. However, no matter who carries the heart for swordsmanship, as long as it hasn't actually reached my level, it will not produce transcendent results. The most likely benefit you'll get in battle is a small but noticeable boost in combat effectiveness. Your blade might become a little sharper, a little more capable of penetrating through armor or a little faster."

Joshua calmed down. "That already sounds great, Ketis. Even a five percent improvement can make an enormous difference in an expert mech duel!"

"That's actually not the end of the story, though. Haven't you forgotten about the other property of living mechs?"

It took a moment for the expert pilot to understand what she was alluding to. "You mean… the mech can grow?"

"Exactly!" She beamed. "For all intents and purposes, my mechs can be regarded as swordsmen in their own right. Since humans can become swordsmen, why not mechs? While I am not sure what it will take for living mechs to improve their swordsmanship, I think that live practice along with fighting actual battles will definitely allow them to develop and refine this aspect, especially when their mech pilots play along. As long as the 'swordsman' mechs continue to grow without getting destroyed along the way, what do you think will happen in the future."

This time, Joshua was too afraid to voice his guess!

"Hehehe… if that ever happens, my work shall become the first mech that has become a real and authentic Swordmaster! Just imagine how the MTA will react to my accomplishment!"

Joshua could scarcely follow Ketis any further. She had gone absolutely mad!