The Mech Touch

"This is too absurd! How can a single expert mech empower so many mechs at once?!"

"This is our legion commander's unique strength! No, this has become the strength of all of our Living Sentinels from now on. Alone, we are weak. Together, we are strong!"

"The Minerva is a masterwork expert mech, remember? It's not comparable to the more normal mechs like the Dark Zephyr. Even the Bolvos Rage piloted by that arrogant Cross Patriarch doesn't have as much potential."

Everyone in the expeditionary fleet was utterly impressed by the strength and capabilities shown by the Minerva.

All of the prior expert mechs were impressive in their own right, but few of them showcased their full capabilities in battle so far, so it was difficult to comprehend their charm.

The Minerva was different. Its signature ability was not only wide-reaching, but also immediately clear to see. Everyone could understand the weight of the expert mech's combat effectiveness after seeing hundreds of Sentinel mechs beat the crap out of their Avatar counterparts!

Fortunately, the Avatars didn't suffer from this ordeal for long. Commander Casella Ingvar had already expended a lot of her willpower today and still needed to save her strength for the last sequence of tests.

The Minerva quietly retracted its Command Field without any warning, thereby depriving the Sentinel mechs of Casella's guidance and strength!

Most of the Sentinel pilots were caught off-guard. The deprivation was so abrupt that they could not adjust in time before the steady Avatar mechs quickly took advantage of the disruption in rhythm to regain their dominance!

Ves twitched as he saw the results of this abrupt move. The Sentinel mech pilots clearly needed to train this scenario more often in order to avoid getting stunned during an actual battle.

"Alright, that's enough. End the sparring session. We're not here to see ordinary mechs fight."

Most of the Avatar and Sentinel mechs retreated. Since both sides controlled their attacking power well, they did not incur any significant damage.

At most, the Sentinel mechs occasionally created accidents due to failing to adjust for their sudden boost in power.

Given her previous exertions, Ves gave Commander Casella a few minutes to catch her breath while he discussed the current results with his fellow colleagues.

"What do you think?"

"Strong." Gloriana answered. "I already expected our latest masterwork mech to be powerful, but what Commander Casella can do is a real game changer. What is even more promising is that this is only the beginning. Once Commander Casella grows into her power and once we perform a few upgrades on the Minerva, she can truly dominate the battlefield!"

Juliet Stameros had another opinion.

"The Minerva shouldn't be used to amplify the Sentinels. It is a force multiplier that can strengthen the combat effectiveness of any mech unit after sufficient practice and acclimatization. However, why should we use the Commandeering ability to boost our weaker mech units when we have much stronger ones at our disposal? Think of what the Minerva can do when it fights alongside the Penitent Sisters. When all of their Valkyrie Redeemers charge alongside the Minerva, they can tear apart any enemy mech formation!" Pa nda

Novel That was an interesting thought and one that Ves took seriously.

If Commander Casella could strengthen an ant and an elephant by the same proportion, then only a fool would apply to the ant!

However, Ves did not think the difference between the Sentinels and the other mech legions was this wide. The previous mock battle showed that the Sentinel mechs could still burst out with battle power beyond the level of an elite mech unit!

Sure, the Avatar mechs could exert even greater strength after being Commandeered, but their alignment with Commander Casella was not that high.

Ultimately, Casella and the Living Sentinels belonged to the same camp! Their relationships and affection ran deep due to Casella's successful attempt to revive the mech legion after a crushing defeat in the past.

Hardly anyone in the Larkinson Army remembered the first-generation Sentinel Commander. Compared to the accomplishments of Magdalena Larkinson, the latest rising star of the Larkinson Clan contributed a lot more to the Larkinson Clan!

Now that she had finally gained an expert mech that could properly amplify her strength in battle, Commander Casella was about to take off even more!

Ves frowned in thought.

"Does Commander Casella have a boyfriend?"

Gloriana immediately pinned her husband with a suspicious stare.

"Why do you ask?"

"I just thought it would be nice if she was like Venerable Joshua or Venerable Tusa. If she has married someone and started a family, she can potentially raise children who can follow in her footsteps if they develop genetic aptitude. With her personal tutelage and guidance, it is not impossible for her to raise a successor that can inherit her talent for Commandeering mechs."

His wife rolled her eyes. "I've studied and talked to her extensively. Commander Casella is a dedicated woman who takes her responsibilities seriously. She spends much of her time leading the Living Sentinels. She was even willing to sacrifice her practice time in order to make sure her mech legion is well-run. Starting a relationship is much further down her list of priorities. Even if she is interested in finding a partner, there are not many people in our clan who can handle an expert pilot and a legion commander."

She was right. Although Casella could always hook up with an average guy, Ves doubted that such a relationship could stand the test of time.

"Well, this isn't really relevant to the current field test, so let's set it aside. Before we begin with testing the Minerva's second resonance ability, do you have any further comments?"

When Ves saw that no one had any desire to say anything that couldn't wait, he turned around and issued a few instructions.

"Good job so far, commander. For the final series of tests, we want to explore your application of the resonance ability associated with Pecker Carbon. This resonating material behaves opposite to Talasmir, and that is interesting to us. If our guess is right, resonating with Pecker Carbon will allow you to infuse a lot of concentrated strength on an individual mech and mech pilot. Since you are concentrating so much power in a single mech, this can potentially be highly dangerous."

"What do you have in mind, patriarch?" The tired Sentinel Commander asked.

"Well, it already helps that you are nearing the end of your limits. We have two choices here.

We can try to start with testing your Single Empowerment resonating ability by starting off with strong mechs and hope that they are sturdy enough to withstand any accident.

We can also begin by testing your second resonating ability on a weaker mech, perhaps one that is piloted by a volunteer or by no one at all. Since we already confirmed that your influence works on living mechs, maybe we can be extra safe by letting you resonate with an AI-driven mech."

Commander Casella frowned. "You are in charge of this field test. I will defer to your arrangements."

"Alright, then let's start with an expert mech." Ves decided. "I am incredibly curious whether your Command Field can positively affect another expert pilot and expert mech. I have several different theories but they conflict with each other."

The potential of letting the Minerva empower an expert mech was not light!

What if the expert command mech was able to lend its strength to the Amaranto?

The high-powered shots fired by the latter could smash through any enemy expert mech!

What if the Minerva and the Shield of Samar banded together?

Venerable Jannzi's resonance barrier could block even more powerful warship volleys!

What if… Commander Casella and Patriarch Reginald Cross teamed up? Whether the latter is piloting the Bolvos Rage or the Mars Project once it was finished, the top-level combat asset of the expeditionary fleet would be able to demonstrate strength that surpassed the level of a high-tier expert mech!

Ves even came up with an interesting thought.

The resonance strength of an expert pilot measured between 1 to 67 laveres.

If an expert pilot happened to grow his strength up to 66 laveres. If Commander Casella empowered him to the extent of boosting his resonance strength by 20 laveres, what would happen?

Even though the lavere scale was not linear as far as he knew, it should definitely be possible to push the expert pilot's effective resonance strength beyond 67!

The problem was that a resonance strength that was higher than that was always considered to be the territory of an ace pilot!

Would the empowered expert pilot be able to display the power of a genuine ace pilot or would he get stuck half-way? What if something unintended happened that could cause the hapless high-tier expert pilot to suffer an accident and fall into a coma?

There were way too many questions and far too few answers. This was why it was so important for him to conduct all of these tests and collect a huge amount of data. ᴘᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ

They soon proceeded with the test by putting the Everchanger back in front of the Minerva.

Though Venerable Joshua complained about being used as a test dummy yet again, Ves had good reasons to make use of him. He not only got along with everyone, but was an inherently adaptable expert pilot. The same applied to his expert mech.

Therefore, if the Minerva was able to empower any expert mech, then the Everchanger was the most likely candidate!

"I am about to start. Get ready." Commander Casella warned everyone.

She concentrated her mind and will and tried to resonate with the Pecker Carbon that was integrated into her expert mech.

The sensations were quite different from resonating with Talasmir!

Whereas Talasmir made her feel as if she was inflating her mind to ridiculous proportions, Pecker Carbon made her think as if her mind was being crushed by another person's hands!

Though Casella was eventually able to get accustomed to the strain, it was still difficult for her to compress her Command Field in a single point without practice.

"Ah!"

She soon discovered another problem.

"I can't do this, sir. I can feel that Joshua is welcoming me, but I am unable to push further. The two of us are like water and oil. We can't mix together."

"Oh?" Ves slightly frowned. He was afraid of this. "Keep trying for a minute, but don't try too hard. If you haven't obtained any results, then let us try our luck with the other expert mechs."

They had no luck on the latter. No matter whether it was the Dark Zephyr or the Shield of Samar, the other mechs actively repulsed any foreign intrusion no matter whether it was benign or malignant.

From the vague and imperfect descriptions given by the expert pilots, Ves managed to confirm one of his hypotheses.

"Expert pilots possess incomparably strong willpower. This can produce a strong and highly individual field around themselves that form the precursor of their domain fields. Among equals, they will not allow anyone to encroach on their territory. Therefore, no matter how much Commander Casella tries to infuse them with her strength, the other expert pilots cannot tolerate such an invasive intrusion."

From what Ves understood about the nature and role of extraordinary willpower, he believed this was the most likely explanation.

The point was that Casella had no chance of empowering any expert mechs.

Though this was disappointing news, Ves did not linger on it for too long.

"If expert pilots don't work, what about expert candidates? Someone call the B-Man forward. Vincent Ricklin is an excellent test subject for our next attempt!"

When the Minerva applied its Single Empowerment ability on Vincent and his new custom hybrid mech, the results were finally different!

After only a moderate amount of effort, Commander Casella was able to latch on to the expert candidate, theory enabling her to channel a larger proportion of her effective strength to the B-Man!

"Whoa!" Vincent gasped as she could feel a much stronger lady pumping his head full with power! "This is better than a one night stand!"

The B-Man's codpiece was heating up from the vastly elevated energies channeling through its thick and sturdy frame!