The Mech Touch

Ves appreciated the BDX-35F-3 for presenting him with a novel mech concept.

The idea of designing a mech that allowed mech pilots to become unaffected by fear and other negative emotions had a lot of uses, particularly for mech forces with low-quality mech pilots.

A mech pilot that depended less on emotions had to fill up the void in another way, and that mostly translated into greater rationality.

What Ves found particularly brilliant about the BDX-35F-3 model was that its advanced neural interface enabled mech pilots to directly access the formidable processing power of their mechs.

This caused the mech pilots to aim the weapons of their mechs more precisely and become a lot more deliberate about their coordination. It was a good way for bad or average mech pilots to increase their effective performance in battle, especially when subjected to a lot of pressure.

Although the BDX-35F-3 model ultimately failed to gain popularity, Ves still wanted to work with this idea.

His innovative desires began to fire up his passion again. The challenge presented by the BDX-35F-3 and its concept was just right for him. Whereas others would probably fail if they tried to work with this idea, Ves was confident that his specialty and his circumstances would allow him to succeed!

He recalled the time when the Battle Criers fought against the Burza Fens of the Molten Hammers.

The Battle Criers did not lose courage immediately, which was commendable, but they were definitely intimidated by their opponent. The powerful force of will of the enemy expert pilot had likely suppressed the Battle Crier mech pilots to a certain degree, causing them to feel more burdened than normal.

The superior mobility of the axe-wielding expert mech also posed a hindrance to the Battle Criers. The expert pilot might not excel at evasion, but his high skill level combined with his powerful machine caused a lot of incoming shots to miss.

If Ves was able to take the premise of the BDX-35F-3 and put his own spin on it, he could equip the Battle Criers that could help them perform a lot better in the same scenario!

"In fact, it's not just an effective solution against enemy expert mechs. It's also good against other kinds of opposition!"

The Larkinson Army was filled with emotional mech pilots. They paired well with living mechs and they were also key to increasing the chance of breakthroughs.

The clan culture also placed a great importance on emotional attachment. A good clansman was someone who cared about family, loved their fellow brothers and sisters and was invested in the success of the clan.

When Ves looked back on his work so far, he realized that every mech leveraged strong emotions in one way or another. It was a formula that had always paired well with the kind of mechs he liked to design.

The recent expert mech design projects exemplified this design direction as far as he was concerned.

For example, the Dark Zephyr actively stimulated Venerable Tusa's desire to pursue speed and freedom. By increasing the expert pilot's main tendences, the expert mech performed a bit better due to arousing greater resonance between expert pilot and expert mech.

The Shield of Samar was an even more extreme case. This masterwork expert mech depended a lot more on its resonance abilities to show its value. The more Venerable Jannzi feared the deaths of fellow clansmen and the more she yearned to shield the vulnerable Larkinsons from attacks, the stronger she and her machine partner could project a powerful resonance-enhanced barrier!

Though Ves had never seen this dynamic play out in a real battle, he was pretty certain it worked that way based on his own understanding and the performance of other expert mechs.

"The point is that I've been relying so much on this single direction that I have never considered any alternatives."

As a passionate mech designer that was sensitive towards life, Ves loved to embrace emotions.

Emotion was life, both figuratively and literally. Spiritual energy was not neutral, but instead emerged from the thoughts and emotions of sentient life. This had further pushed him towards using and leveraging emotions to his advantage.

This realization presented him with a daring notion.

Instead of designing yet another living mech that centered around emotions again, what if he went into the opposite direction?

What if he focused on developing a new mech that emphasized total rationality in place of emotions?

Ves ignored everything else around him and played this idea out in his imagination.

A mech based on rationality likely wouldn't translate well in a melee mech. Melee mech pilots depended heavily on instinct and unconscious reactions to make split-second decisions on how to defeat opponents right in front of them. Perhaps he could find a way to make it work, but the consequences of failure were much more direct and impactful.

It was better to apply it to a ranged mech where there was more room for deliberation. The price of failure was not as dire, as a missed shot was nothing special.

The goal behind a ranged mech based on rationality was to minimize flaws and inconsistent behavior, though. While Ves did not expect to achieve total accuracy, he at least wanted to give mech pilots the capability to leverage the processing power of a mech to make more accurate judgements about the positioning of a fast-moving opponent.

The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to tackle this project right away!

This was a good sign. As long as he was interested in realizing a new vision, he would undoubtedly put his best effort into the design project.

That said, he did not completely let his emotions run away with this new idea. His more cautious side recognized that this was a riskier design project than usual.

Trying to develop a mech that adopted a completely opposite paradigm was not for the faint of heart!

Ves would be entering new territory where he could not rely on a great portion of his previous accumulation to steer a design project towards a successful implementation.

The lead designer of the BDX-35F-3 was a Master Mech Designer who not only excelled at changing neural interfaces to fit his needs, but also found ways to decrease the distance between man and machine.

Yet despite these exceptional technical accomplishments, the best effort of this Master resulted in a flop that had ultimately been phased out after being fielded in limited numbers!

Ves could not ignore this failure. Although he could learn from it and try to address the shortcomings that made the BDX-35F-3 model unpopular, he wasn't sure whether he could fix all of the fundamental disadvantages of this concept.

For example, that little detail about producing not a hint of a breakthrough was pretty serious!

If he truly wanted to add this unorthodox mech model to the Battle Crier's mech roster, then he either had to solve this problem or accept that its mech pilots would be giving up their opportunity to become greater.

Fortunately, this problem wasn't as serious to the Larkinson Clan than others. Ves had the ability to identify spiritual potential in other people. If he could make it so that those with the possibility of undergoing apotheosis piloted a different mech, then the Battle Criers shouldn't suffer a loss.

All of this entailed a lot of work, though. This was one of the prices that he had to pay for designing such a weird and different mech from the norm. He had to tread new ground and invent many new solutions to many new problems.

It all excited him. Though he didn't intend to give up on designing ‘normal' living mechs, one of the reasons why he wanted to embark on solo mech design projects was to explore whacky and unconventional ideas just like this one! By relying on his own expertise and efforts, he would have much more room to experiment without conflicting with the work or area of responsibility of one of his colleagues.

Once he fully resolved to design a special spaceborn rifleman mech for the Battle Criers, he discreetly took action.

Even as he and his wife moved on to the next exhibit, Blinky secretly exited his mind and soared towards the BDX-35F-3 in order to make contact.

It was easy to persuade this neglected masterwork mech to give away a piece of itself. Ves merely had to state that he intended to use its strength to design a new mech that successfully implemented the vision that it was based upon.

Ves' goal fully aligned with the goal of the lead designer of the BDX-35F-3, so the masterwork mech was already inclined to agree.

Due to the machine's low life order, it didn't even question Ves' sincerity. He only had to convey his passion in order to hoodwink the masterwork mech into giving up a spiritual fragment!

This was the riskiest part about this covert move. Ves casually turned and swept his gaze across the entire hall. He pretended to admire all of the masterwork mechs in sight, but what he was actually doing was confirming that there were no other people in the vicinity.

Luckily, he picked a good moment to act, before the last group of visitors had exited the hall a few minutes ago. This was as good a time as any for him to make his move.

"Do it." He silently commanded Blinky.

The companion spirit chomped a portion of BDX-35F-3 spiritual foundation and quickly snuck back into Ves' mind!

Barely a second had passed as Ves and Blinky quickly pulled off their invisible heist!

Ves forcibly tried to remain calm. He even donned a spiritual mask in order to suppress his body language and make it so that he remained as casual as ever.

He was more than cognizant that the MTA's ubiquitous monitoring system was watching everything. It could easily pick up any abnormal behavior on the surface and prompt greater investigation.

Nothing happened.

No alarms rang in the hall. No energy shields came up to separate the valuable exhibits. No guards poured in to arrest Ves on suspicion of tampering with other people's property.

Although Ves could clearly feel that the BDX-35F-3 was hurt and had lost a part of its strength, that was because he was sensitive towards these changes.

Other mech designers might vaguely be able to recognize that something had changed, but they might not be able to identify the issue right away.

Even if they detected anything amiss, then they might not tie it back to a random and inconsequential Journeymen.

At least he hoped that would be the case.

Ah well. At most, he would get a lifetime ban from visiting another Masterwork Gallery. That was an acceptable price to pay.

With one spiritual fragment in his grasp, Ves continued to act as if nothing had changed at all. Though Gloriana gave him a sidelong look that lasted longer than usual, she quickly directed her attention back to Aurelia who had grown hungry again.

Ves was already looking for his next mark. Though the chances of exposure was greater if he repeated his earlier deed, he did not want to leave with such a meager prize.

Where should he harvest his next spiritual fragment?

The answer to this question was dependent on the mechs he intended to design.

He already committed to designing a new rifleman mech for the Battle Criers. He needed to think about providing a solution to another mech legion.

Two of them came to mind right now. The Living Sentinels and the Flagrant Vandals could also use a bit of love.

It was difficult for Ves to choose what kind of specialized mech he should provide to the Living Sentinels. They were the only non-elite mech legion of the Larkinson Army and therefore had lower demands. The Bright Warrior already fit them well due to its large tolerance and lower skill floor.

The Flagrant Vandals on the other hand could use a new signature mech that strengthened their reconnaissance role. The Ferocious Piranha was a great mech to employ against weak-willed and undisciplined opponents, but many pioneers tended to employ highly-trained individuals who possessed a lot more mental fortitude than normal!

What the Flagrant Vandals needed was a new light mech that could fully make them relevant in the Red Ocean.