The Mech Touch

Ves was quite sure that he inadvertently acquired classified research materials from the System.

Unless a state or a private organization managed to make a lot of successful advances in deciphering the physical attributes of luminar crystals, it was highly likely that the knowledge granted by Luminar Crystals IV came directly from the MTA research team that Master Willix had once mentioned!

"It's not exactly what I was looking for, but hey, since it's there, I'll just take it." He grinned.

The reason why he concluded that the new knowledge originated from the MTA was because it matched with the documents that Master Willix had already decided to release to him. It was as if Ves had only gotten part 1 of a series while the System supplied him with parts 2 to 6!

The huge amount of insights he gained on the material properties of luminar crystals might not bring him closer to combining mechanical engineering with spiritual engineering, but they substantially expanded his possible uses for luminar crystals.

"It's exactly what I need to bring the Sentry Project to the next level!"

In fact, what he learned went far beyond this. He could employ stronger and more versatile varieties of luminar crystals in all sorts of other projects.

Unlike the progress he made with the assistance of the crystal cube and the Illustrious One, the methods he gained from the System did not rely on spiritual engineering at all! The MTA research team accomplished most if not all of its successful research results by imitating excavated luminar crystals through human methods.

Even though humanity's attempts to decipher and replicate luminar crystals were fairly shallow, they leveraged their existing understanding of crystals over the course of their studies.

Now, a large chunk of this relevant human-derived insight had fallen into the hands of Ves.

The biggest implication of this was that Ves had gained the capability to mass produce stronger luminar crystals without being bottlenecked by his limited spiritual capabilities!

He looked down at the crystal rifle which the testing bot had placed on the work table. Ves had handcrafted it with the help of the crystal cube in order to instill the crystals with alien circuitry that somehow channeled and converted spiritual energy in specific beneficial ways.

A crystal synthesized by other humans or from an automated production line lacked this potent circuitry for this reason. This meant that it was impossible for Ves to produce thousands of powerful mechs that incorporated the stronger varieties of luminar crystals!

Even if Ves limited its spread to his own mech troops, he would still be forced to toil for thousands of hours just to make all of the enhanced luminar crystals for his own clan!

This was why he initially gave up on the notion despite knowing that his men would be missing out on a lot of benefits.

As a service provider, Ves hated it when he wasn't able to supply his own mech pilots with better products.

Although he still wasn't able to grant others the ability to make the strongest possible luminar crystals that he knew of, the grounded methods provided by the System gave him an alternative solution that made it a lot more practical for him to design mass production models that took advantage of luminar tech!

He became more and more certain that upcoming ranged mech projects such as the Crystal Lord Mark III would enjoy a definite firepower advantage over other ranged mech models.

"Even the next revision of the Transcendent Punisher will probably enjoy a substantial boost in firepower!"

While he fell short of realizing one of his ambitions, he was not dissatisfied with what he gained at all. The changes he experienced and the options he gained all reinforced his determination to explore this field further.

One day, he would be able to derive the lessons he needed to integrate spirituality with physical objects. Before that happened, Ves would settle with being able to design energy weapons that possessed far greater potency and versatility than what other mech designers were capable of devising.

"Not even mech designers who specialize in energy weapons can match the power of my current work!"

Given the same budget, materials, facilities and design criteria, Ves believed he possessed a distinct advantage. This was because a conventional mech designer was only able to harness his spirituality through passive methods while Ves was able to channel his strength to empower his luminar crystals in an active manner!

Of course, when it came to his mass production models, this gap was a lot less drastic. There was only one of him and it was impossible for him to stay stuck in a production hall all the time in order to churn out empowered luminar crystals day after day.

Ves wasn't in a hurry to solve this problem. Given that not even the MTA managed to find a way to easily allow humans to solve their fundamental spiritual deficiency, how was he supposed to do any better? It was not as if he was capable of making expert pilots on demand either.

Luminar crystal technology aside, Ves was tempted to use the System to strengthen his other Sub-Skills, most notably ones related to fabrication and assembly.

Fabricating the Dark Zephyr caused him to feel inadequate on those fronts for the first time in a very long time. His previous mech design projects were only a fraction as powerful and advanced as his first completed expert mech design.

However, he already spent a lot of Design Points already. He was quite reluctant to improve an aspect that he could improve through his own capabilities instead.

"Hmm, I still need to accumulate 1 million Design Points. I won't be able to get there if I solve every problem with DP."

He realized that he was experiencing the same temptation that had caused him to avoid the System in the first place. He didn't want to become dependent on its services. If the habit of spending DP to overcome every issue became rooted in his mind, then his road to become a Master and Star Designer would surely come to an end!

His face firmed up. "I need to rely on myself again."

While he was willing to compromise on this issue in order to accelerate his progression to Senior, the key premise was that he still retained his chance of becoming a better mech designer at the end. He felt that he was skirting too close to the line if he mindlessly spent his DP on other goodies, so he decided to refrain from thinking in this direction further.

Ideally, he should put the System on ice again. He needed to exercise more discipline so that he wouldn't constantly delay the time where he was able to earn enough DP to spend on huge, life-changing acquisitions.

One way to spend 1 million DP was to exchange it to acquire the essence of expert mech design.

Another way was to appoint Gloriana as a guest user of the System, allowing her to take advantage of some of its powerful capabilities.

While Ves was not sure which option he should choose, there was no way that either of them were weak or useless.

"Obtaining either of these options will probably influence my design career in a profound way!"

He was far from reaching that point, though, so there was not much point to making a decision straight away. 

Ves still had to complete the design of a bunch more expert mechs. As long as he did a decent job with all of them, he would likely obtain at least 100,000 Design Points for each completed project. That brought him a lot closer to the 1 million DP threshold.

"I can't continue with designing expert mechs, sadly." He sighed.

None of the Larkinson Clan's expert candidates broke through, so there were no suitable pilots for him to serve.

Instead, there were a lot of regular mech pilots that built up a huge demand for his products. Both his own clansmen and the market had gone on for a long time without receiving anything new from him. Even if designing standard mechs awarded him with less DP, they were not as troublesome to work with. He just needed to find a way to pump them out faster so that he could reach his goal faster.

"It's easy enough to hire more assistants, but we'll probably remain stuck with four Journeymen for years."

None of the assistants currently in the Design Department possessed any exceptional talent. Not even Miles Tovar, the only other Journeyman candidate that he knew of, had made any significant progress towards forming his design seed.

"This guy is too useless." Ves muttered in disgust.

The main issue he had with Miles was that the man was too careful and rational. His specialization didn't sound very exciting and he just didn't show the same degree of passion as more successful mech designers like Ketis.

Granted, the Swordmaster benefited hugely from Sharpie, but even without her companion spirit Ves was fully confident that she would have succeeded in breaking through the normal way!

He felt tempted to give Miles Tovar a little push by performing an experiment on the stalled Apprentice Mech Designer, but he eventually decided to refrain from taking action.

"He has all of the necessary opportunities to advance to Journeyman through his own merits." Ves determined. "If he can't make the final step himself, then it proves that he is ultimately unworthy to become a Journeyman."

The case of Miles illustrated a rather depressing situation with the Design Department. The harsh truth was that most of the assistants over there were not particularly promising. While people could always change, the chances were slim that any of them would suddenly become more brilliant.

For now, Ves had to take care of more immediate priorities. He picked up the crystal rifle and studied it from a spiritual perspective.

He sensed a rich and intricate spiritual structure inside. The alien circuitry that resembled strings of tiny runes gave him the impression that they were alive in a way.

"It's like a programming language for spirituality." He whispered.

Though the Illustrious One possessed a greater insight into the meaning and application of specific circuitry patterns, the luminar design spirit only possessed a vague familiarity with the underlying principles.

It was the latter that Ves truly needed to accomplish a breakthrough in bringing the spiritual closer to the material.

"One day." He muttered. "One day I'll crack this secret."

He returned to trying to iterate on his crystal rifle design. The previous test provided him with a lot of data. While the results were already impressive, there was still a lot of room for improvement. The crystal weapon he designed was still too crude and rough for his liking.

"Besides, I also need to scale it up for the Sentry Project."

A huge amount of changes took place if he tried to design a crystal weapon for a mech rather than a person. Ves had to perform a lot more tests on giant crystals in order to make sure that the mech-sized version of his crystal rifle would perform as intended.

"This is going to take a lot of work!"

He continued to tinker with crystals and weapons made out of crystals. While their efficiency was already high, Ves found several ways to push the envelope and increase the maximum output of his creations.

The Sentry Project needed a rifle that was able to deliver a powerful strike with a single pull of the trigger. In order to maximize the lethality of its single attacks, Ves had to make several sacrifices. He lowered the firing rate, increased the energy consumption, added more crystals that excelled in absorbing heat and so on. Each of these changes gradually shifted the iterations of his crystal rifle towards a precise but powerful sniper armament.

"Perhaps I can even create a crystal version of the Amastendira one day!"