The Mech Touch

"It's still a good work for a handmade mech." Ves smiled as he admired his work up close. "It's not as rough as I initially feared. Vulcan has really helped me out this time."

He happily held the Hammer of Brilliance in his hand. His incarnation was happy to be of service after a long period of doing nothing. Helping Ves fabricate the Enlightened Warrior provided it with another opportunity to deepen the design spirit's connection to craftsmanship.

The Enlightened Warrior mech that Ves had managed to produce with the help of his own incarnation exuded a special feel that was different from a regular Bright Warrior.

For one, it did not exude a vibe related to the Larkinson Clan. The Golden Cat was almost entirely absent from the design. Though she was indirectly connected to the variant mech design through her connection to the Quint, the Enlightened Warrior was too far removed from her influence to justify her involvement.

Instead, the glow exuded by the mech was much different from that of any other design spirit.

It was more muted, more metallic, less responsive and more… stable for a lack of a better word.

Ves never really noticed the difference before this day, but now that he was able to make comparisons, he realized that the glows of his conventional design spirits were much more fickle than he thought.

It made sense. Design spirits such as Qilanxo, the Superior Mother and even Arnold were living creatures that were subject to mood swings and other mental shifts.

If they became happy, then the positive aspects of their glows became stronger.

If they grew angry, then the hostile parts of their glows gained a boost.

Little changes like that could actually alter the behavior and effectiveness of a glow on a day-to-day basis.

Yet when he studied the Enlightened Warrior that he had just completed, he felt that its glow was a lot more steady than his other living mechs.

This was a reflection of its source. The Quint started out life as a mech, and nothing changed in that regard. The masterwork mech was used to remaining dormant for days, weeks or even months without active use. This meant that the mech had to be patient by nature but also be ready to go online when its strength was truly needed.

"This is a relatively minor difference, though."

In practical terms, the stability of a glow was not that important. What Ves truly cared about was the effect of the glow.

He closed his eyes and reached deeper into the Enlightened Warrior. He could sense the distinctive presence of the Quint more clearly. The masterwork mech didn't seem to know what to do with its brand-new connection to the recently-fabricated mech.

"It's okay. The Enlightened Warrior is your child in a sense. Try and raise it if you can. It's a living mech, just like you. Don't neglect the mech pilot, though. I'll make sure this mech will gain proper exercise soon."

The new mech had to undergo trials in order to verify that it was safe and to prove that the product was sound. Once Ves got this chore out of the way, he could assign a production task to the Spirit of Bentheim's production halls and have them pump out a couple of hundred copies of his new mech design.

"I'll have to make sure that they have access to enough raw materials, though." He frowned.

The Larkinson Clan may have stockpiled a decent amount of materials that were widely used in many different products, but Ves was quite sure that the cargo bays didn't store enough materials to produce hundreds of entirely different mechs than before.

Much of the material stockpiles carried by the Larkinson fleet still comprised of old galaxy materials that were needed to fabricate additional Bright Warriors and other older mech models!

"We need to resolve these logistical issues as well."

The Larkinson Clan couldn't keep producing mechs based on two different tech and material bases. It needed to fully transition to the standards of the Red Ocean before its stock of old materials ran empty.

That was definitely going to take a while. The current round of design projects should reduce the demand for those scarce and difficult-to-replenish goods, but it was going to take another round to complete the transition.

Ves shook his head. He could think about this problem at another time. Right now, he had to verify that the Enlightened Warrior could function properly without posing any threat to its mech pilot.

He floated up to its chest and entered its cockpit so that he could check on the internal diagnostics of the mech. The machine didn't report any problems and his intuition didn't warn him of anything dangerous either, but he could only collect a limited amount of data while it was inactive.

"It needs to be piloted."

He left the cockpit and began to contact a number of people to set up a testing session. He didn't mind performing the trials in open space as the Enlightened Warrior was not a secret project or a strategic clan asset.

Since Ves originally intended to sell it on the local market, it might be good to give his customers real footage of the Enlightened Warrior in action.

"And who better to demonstrate its capabilities than with one of the best-trained mech pilots in human space?"

He activated his comm and brought up a list of contacts. After a short moment of contemplation, he called up the most prominent name who he had heard good stories about.

"Jessica Quentin."

"Yes, Patriarch Ves?" The woman's projection asked.

"The mech that your group has been asking for is finished." Ves replied and gestured to his back where the recently-completed mech was resting. "I need a volunteer to test the mech and see whether it meets your requirements. Are you available?"

"Did you develop a medium mech?"

"Yes. It's a variant of the Bright Warrior and highly resembled it in many areas. Is that a problem?"

"No." Jessica shook her head. "I mostly prefer to pilot lighter mechs, but I am well-versed in piloting other styles of machines. I would be glad to pilot your new mech."

"Alright, then meet me at the hangar bay. The Enlightened Warrior will be in your hands."

Time passed by quickly as Ves made the appropriate arrangements to move the mech he made over to the hangar bay.

A lot of Larkinsons stared at the new mech and grew curious at it. The mech was so obviously based on the Bright Warrior yet possessed a substantially different character that did not seem overly Larkinson.

"What is that mech?"

"Maybe it's an attempt to sell a more universal version of the Bright Warrior on the market."

"It could be a private commission."

"Who would want to buy it, though? A Bright Warrior that doesn't have the right glow doesn't sound that useful to me. Has the patriarch gone mad?"

"Mate. You must be new here, right? Let me tell you that the patriarch is always mad. It's just a question whether it's the right or wrong kind of madness for the situation."

Once Ves moved the mech to the hangar bay, he personally supervised the process of outfitting it in its swordsman mech configuration. This was the simplest and most flexible melee mech configuration and fit well with the test pilot's inclinations.

Soon enough. Jessica Quentin along with a group of other MTA mech pilots arrived at the hangar bay.

A few mech designers appeared as well. Janassa Pellier and Tifi Coslone wanted to see what the excitement was all about.

"So this is your new mech. It's… not what I expected, sir." Janassa said.

She obviously wanted to say more but refrained from doing so. Her opinion of the mech was not that good.

"It's more than it looks." Ves lightly responded. "The Enlightened Warrior should be seen as a pseudo-training mech. While it is not as optimized and efficient as our regular mech models, it provides a unique service to its mech pilots."

"Like the Chiron model that our mech cadets love so much?"

"They're similar, but there are still differences. The Enlightened Warrior is the grown-up version of an academy training mech. It is not meant to be piloted in live practice sessions and other controlled environments. It is still a capable combat mech and should participate in battles in order to provide the best possible training conditions to the mech pilots."

Neither Janassa nor Tifi understood what Ves was saying.

"This sounds contradictory, patriarch." Tifi frowned. "Training mechs and combat mechs are treated as separate products because their functions often conflict with each other. Accommodations made to training mechs usually diminish their effectiveness in real battle. As for combat mechs, their lethality and lack of safety buffers make it dangerous for them to be used in live practice."

"Ah, I already said that the Enlightened Warrior is meant for actual mech pilots. To be honest, it is a training mech for better mech pilots rather than those who still need to work on their fundamentals. This is a mech which I hope will increase the possibility of breakthroughs."

That caused the two new Journeymen to look surprised. "Truly? How? Isn't this impossible?"

Ves told them the basic rationale of how the Enlightened Warrior worked. He merely shoved most of the responsibility to the Quint without going into too many other details. No one needed to know the full truth, and certainly not the MTA who was probably eavesdropping on this conversation!

"It sounds difficult to believe, sir." Janassa eventually remarked. "We are still new to living mechs. I never imagined you could use another mech as the source of a glow."

"Hehehe. Isn't the mech in front of you proof that I can make it work? The Enlightened Warrior is completely new, but as long as you put it next to the Quint, you'll probably be able to see that the two are related and not just in a physical sense."

Ves wasn't here to explain his own work. Once he brushed Janassa and Tifi aside, he instructed Jessica Quentin to suit up and enter the cockpit of the Enlightened Warrior.

After undergoing the usual routine checks, the mech pilot finally received permission to activate her new machine.

Ves observed carefully as the MTA mech pilot opened herself up to the first Enlightened Warrior in existence.

The boot-up procedure went as normal and no significant anomalies occurred. Ves paid close attention to the pilot telemetry and especially the strain endured by the mech pilot.

Although the readings signaled elevated activity, there were few signs of elevated stress and no signs of any buildup of pressure in Jessica Quentin's head!

Of course, the transcendence portion of the Enlightened Warrior's glow wasn't online yet. The Quint wisely withheld it from activating since this was Quentin's first time piloting this new mech.

Once the Enlightened Warrior completed its boot-up process, Ves wanted to see it in action.

"If there is nothing wrong, please deploy your mech into space. We have already prepared a basic testing course a few hundred kilometers away from our fleet."

The new mech launched into space without any fanfare. Though a lot of people in the expeditionary fleet had grown curious about the new mech, none of them understood what made it different.

Even Jessica wasn't sure about whether the mech lived up to its promise! So far, she did not sense any of the guidance or assistance that she expected.

"Is this a defective mech?" She wondered even as she flew it deeper into space.