The Mech Touch

A hundred kilometers was a large distance on land, but only a brisk flight in space.

Thousands of additional Larkinson mechs had deployed in space, but not because they needed to escort the second expert mech of the Larkinson Clan to its destination.

They weren't needed to protect the Sentry Project. The chance of the expert mech malfunctioning was virtually zero at the moment. If the mech contained any major flaw that could cause it to deviate outside of its optimal performance standards, then it wouldn't have become a masterwork in the first place!

A lot of bots went ahead and prepared the large region of space instead. While it was impossible to hide any laser beams that surged past the interference envelope and continued to soar into the distance, the Sentry Project itself would at least maintain some privacy.

The Dark Zephyr had already launched ahead and was hovering patiently in the middle of the interference zone. When Venerable Tusa was able to see and feel the approach of the masterwork expert mech, his face turned a little sour.

Any expert pilot would feel jealous when they saw such a fantastic mech. The probability of any of them receiving a masterwork was low. The few who were able to pilot them had won the lottery as far as everyone was concerned.

He soon calmed himself down. It was natural for a human to experience envy, but expert pilots like him were not supposed to be shaken by these weaknesses.

While this was not a real battle, it was still important for him to be in his best form.

When the expert mechs flew close enough to each other, the domains produced by their resonance overlapped with each other.

Venerable Tusa immediately had the illusion that a portion of his territory was being taken over by a more powerful presence.

He mentally inspected the resonance strength meter in order to see what it had to say.

"Damn! Wasn't she just below 19 laveres previously? How come she jumped to 23.58 all of a sudden?"

The sudden increase in strength signified that Venerable Stark had not only managed to harness her new expert mech to a high degree, but also experienced a minor breakthrough after a long time of not being able to pilot a mech that could fully accommodate her strength.

The lavere scale was not linear. An expert pilot who possessed a resonance strength of 5 laveres was not literally that many times stronger than an expert pilot who measured at just 1 lavere.

Even if this was the case, there were many other factors such as mech class and mech type that determined which one was more likely to defeat the other.

In general terms, a light skirmisher possessed a modest advantage against a rifleman mech.

Every child knew that if a light skirmisher ever got into point-blank range of a ranged mech, the latter was almost certainly doomed.

The only hope for the rifleman mech was to take an approaching light mech down before it closed the distance, but that was easier said than done. Many light mechs were primarily designed to thread through enemy fire, and the Dark Zephyr exemplified this archetype.

"Yet why do I have the suspicion that I am in trouble?" Tusa whispered.

Just the confrontation between their resonance fields already revealed a remarkable difference. Venerable Tusa was still young and had a lot of time to develop his potential, but that also meant that his current level of strength was still in the early stages.

Venerable Stark was different. Despite her lack of experience in piloting actual expert mechs, her age and life experiences had molded her will into a strong flame that allowed her to persist despite the long delay in obtaining an appropriate machine.

She had already experienced the lowest that an expert pilot could go. Every other challenge and difficulty seemed trivial in comparison.

Even so, that did not stop her from becoming more and more excited at the prospect of finding out how much power she was actually able to wield this time.

After a brief delay, a reinforced communication bot relayed a command from the Spirit of Bentheim.

"Before you can begin to test fire your weapon, let us make sure your mech is able to maneuver correctly. Please perform the following movements."

The Larkinsons rushed through the basic maneuvering tests. Unlike the Dark Zephyr, the Sentry Project was not a mobility-oriented machine.

The only reason why Gloriana and the other Journeymen wanted to see the expert rifleman mech move was to record the improved performance of a masterwork version of the expert mech.

The maneuvering tests proceeded without any problem. The Sentry Project wasn't capable of performing any extravagant moves, so Venerable Stark and everyone else was quickly able to ascertain how it moved.

"It's not a dancer, that's for sure." Ves muttered. "The improvement in mobility is so slight that there is no need for us to study it any further."

"Let's proceed with testing its defensive parameters." Gloriana instructed.

This was fairly simple. The Sentry Project flew back to the middle and maintained a stable position relative to the interference envelope.

A single bot warmed up its energy gun and fired a weak second-class laser beam onto the surface of the expert mech.

"The armor is holding."

The bot began to fire successively more powerful laser beams at different parts of the mech. Although rifleman mechs were not known for their defensive prowess, their expert mech counterparts were still a lot better protected.

The bot stopped firing when the Larkinsons gathered enough data to figure out how the Sentry Project reacted against laser attacks.

Another bot began to fire solid rounds at the Sentry Project. The mech endured increasingly stronger impacts but its armor held remarkably well.

These tests repeated several times until Ves and the others gathered enough data to figure out exactly how much conventional damage the expert mech was able to take.

"Let's proceed with testing its resonance shield."

This was a much more interesting test. Every expert mech incorporated resonating materials that were able to project such a useful ability. The ones incorporated in light mechs and slimmer rifleman mechs were substantially weaker, but as a different set of bots began to stress the glowing barrier, it remained incredibly strong!

The Larkinsons did not plan to test the limits of the Sentry Project's resonance shield in this specific test. It was too dangerous, especially considering that this work of art was not covered with Unending alloy.

Still, the data that they have managed to gather already allowed Gloriana to estimate how much damage the masterwork expert mech could take before breaking.

The results weren't precise, but the numbers were already a lot greater than those of the Dark Zephyr.

The ranged mech was actually able to fend off a lot more attacks than a mech that was much more likely to be in the line of fire!

None of the mech designers were surprised at this observation, though not all of them predicted this big of a gap.

"The amount of damage that a resonance shield can withstand under normal circumstances scales with the resonance strength of an expert pilot." Gloriana said. "Venerable Stark is a lot further ahead than the rest, so it is expected that her expert mech can take a lot more hits than the Dark Zephyr."

What they were really wondering was how its status as a prime mech and a masterwork strengthened the resonance shield. When Ves studied the projection of the Sentry Project, he wasn't able to figure out how much stronger its resonance shield had become due to these extra influences.

It didn't help that the machine in question was way too far away for him to sweep the machine with his spiritual senses. He would have to witness the mech up close in order to discern more details.

He instinctively judged that the Sentry Project's resonance shield was strong enough that it could give any attackers an unwelcome surprise.

"Alright, now that we got all of the chores out of the way, let's begin the fun stuff! Venerable Stark, please arm the rifle. We'll begin with a simple test shot."

A sacrificial bot flew forward and occupied a conspicuous position. There was nothing behind it except for empty space that led away from the star system. In fact, it was pointed directly below the orbital plane.

This ensured that if some other ship coincidentally transitioned into the star system, the chances of it getting struck by an errant energy beam would be so low that it was virtually zero!

Before they commenced the first test, Venerable Stark suddenly issued a request.

"I would like permission to fire my rifle at maximum strength. I think I will be able to get a better feel for what I can do if I can see how much power it is able to unleash at a single time."

Ves threw a look at Gloriana. Originally, they planned to follow the previous pattern and start out low before slowly ramping up the damage output.

She shrugged. "I suppose we might indulge her. It is extremely unlikely for the luminar crystal rifle to blow up considering it is a masterwork weapon in its own right."

This didn't exactly conform with all of the safety rules, but they were willing to make allowances for the expert pilot of their first masterwork mech.

In truth, Ves and the other Journeymen were just as eager to know how powerful the Sentry Project's single shot could be. Which mech designer didn't like to see things go boom in the most violent way possible?

"Permission granted, but make sure to pay attention to your safety."

Venerable Stark finally began to grin. "It's time. Let's try and see what we can do!"

For the first shot fired by the Sentry Project, she opted to stick with the standard laser beam. It was the simplest and most basic form of energy attack that the luminar crystal could fire, but light was the essence of her expert mech.

In order to unleash the most powerful laser beam that the Sentry Project could unleash, Venerable Stark took her time to charge up the attack. The crystalline rifle began to glow increasingly brighter as it began to accumulate more and more energy.

Not only that, but the expert pilot also tried her best to leverage other ways of empowering the attack.

She resonated with her mech and more specifically its rifle to an increasing degree. The weapon quickly began to radiate more and more light as several different energies coursed across its lustrous crystals!

At least three different sources charged up the rifle.

The expert mech had supplied a lot of conventional energy to the weapon. In fact, the rifle absorbed so much of it that it couldn't take any more.

The true resonance generated by Venerable Stark exerting her force of will upon the weapon not only empowered the attack in a mysterious way, but also stimulated the Opticonium that was seamlessly embedded in the rifle body.

What made the Sentry Project different from many other expert rifleman mechs was that it was also a prime mech. At this time, Venerable Stark resonated with the abundant amount of spiritual energy taken from the Illustrious One and dumped into the P-stones embedded into the rifle!

For a moment, it seemed as if the armament turned into an avatar of the Illustrious One.

If the weapon already glowed like a rainbow before, now it blazed like a sun!

Signs of instability finally emanated from the luminar crystal rifle. It was trying to contain so much power from different sources that it could not physically bear the enormous strain for long!

"Enough, Venerable Stark!" Ves shouted into the communication channel. "Pull the trigger already!"

The projectors that displayed the Sentry Project all flashed white as the bots observing the expert mech were momentarily blinded without exception!

The entire star system seemed to have turned into a bunker as a thick laser beam that was as wide as mech surged directly out of the interference zone and flew straight downwards relative to the orbital plane for many light seconds!

It didn't take much time for the various sensor and observation systems to regain their normal functions, but the fact that they failed in the first place was already a sign that the attack was extremely remarkable.

The white beam of death had not only vaporized every atom of the sacrificial bot, but also contained plenty of power to punch through the armor of a typical second-class expert mech!

In fact, the exaggerated power of the Sentry Project also had even greater implications.

"This… is the perfect ship killer!" Gloriana exclaimed!

As the expert mech dimmed back to normal, Venerable Stark had become a bit more fatigued. It wasn't easy for her to leverage multiple forms of resonance to launch such a powerful attack.

It was only now that she finally found the right name for her combat partner.

"We will fight side-by-side until one of us falls apart, Amaranto."

The third eye of the masterwork expert mech flashed in red for a brief moment of time.