The Mech Touch

"Biotechnology… has its strengths."

Although most humans considered biotechnology to be unnatural and a deviation from humanity's technological progression, Ves did not quibble too much about what was right or what was wrong.

Whether it was luminar crystal technology or spiritual engineering, Ves only judged their value by how much strength and benefits they brought to him. He treated biotechnology in the same manner.

The color of the cat didn't matter as long as it caught mice.

As for other concerns such as how they distorted human society or how much destruction they could bring, what did it matter to him? He was just a mech designer, not a galactic mech councilor who bore the weight of human civilization on his shoulders.

Though most ordinary humans possessed a bias against biotechnology due to how icky it appeared, Ves has spent enough time in the Life Research Association to be able to move past this instinctive response.

Although the Titan-3 Project did not exactly look bright and innocent, it was a powerful piece of equipment that could definitely elevate the Everchanger's combat capabilities to a new height!

"Leaving aside the meat suit's only ‘ranged' attack method, it is a great war weapon, and one that can definitely play a useful role in the right circumstances."

Dr. Perris proudly smiled. "Thank you, sir. Our team and I have worked hard to make it worthy of the Everchanger. That said, we need to know whether you are willing to include this additional biological weapon system in the Titan-3 Project. The complexity and additional bioprogramming involved will set back the completion of the project by at least a couple of weeks."

This was a difficult question for Ves to answer. He wanted the Titan-3 Project to conclude as soon as possible so that his clan would be ready to tackle any unforeseen challenges.

However, he was also tempted by the choice to add an extra trump to the meat suit. The simulation battle left a profound impression on him. Even though the meat suit had to cannibalize its own biomass in order to generate all of those miniature flesh missiles, the amount of damage and disruption they could inflict was too great for him to ignore!

His eyes sharpened. "Are you sure this bioweapon system will not violate the MTA's sensibilities?"

The female biomech designer nodded. "This solution is not as terrible as you think. The autonomous flesh missiles cannot be formed out of nothing. While the meat suit comes with a reserve of excess biomass, it cannot afford to lose too much muscle mass, so it can only generate a limited amount of bioprojectiles before it has to stop. The only reason why we believe this weapon system is a good choice for the Titan-3 Project is because of the potential synergies it might form if Venerable Joshua resonates with the meat suit. The strength and potentially the growth potential of these bioprojectiles will likely receive a substantial boost if they are empowered by his strength."

This was an interesting possibility! Given how Venerable Joshua was able to resonate with the Titania's flesh, it was easy to infer that he might be able to give this unorthodox attack method a powerful boost that qualitatively boosted their effectiveness.

His body shook. Ves could hardly imagine how devastating Venerable Joshua might become if his life domain fully resonated with the meat suit with all of its biological capabilities!

He made a decision.

"You can add this additional weapon to the Titan-3 Project." He told her. "I can't say no to obtaining another trump card. We'll have to keep this weapon system under wraps until we truly need to make use of it, though. How long will it take to complete this project with this addition?"

"We can finish it and produce the meat suit in two months if we are not delayed. If there are any setbacks, it might take up to three months before the Everchanger can make use of this powerful wargear. We will need your assistance in order to impart your design philosophy to it and help us increase its integration with the Everchanger."

Ves nodded in understanding. "Our current design round will soon come to an end, so I have plenty of spare time to contribute to projects like these. Just take into account that I have more priorities on my plate than the Titan-3 Project. I also need to spend time on contributing to the artillery mounted wargear loadout. If the meat suit is our best close-ranged ship killer, then the artillery loadout that is also under development will be our long-ranged ship killer!"

Unlike the meat suit, the artillery loadout was based on conventional technology. It was much simpler in construction compared to the Titan-3 Project because it didn't need to perform so many different functions.

The artillery loadout, otherwise known as the Megagunner Project, was nothing more than a giant mounted module that was stuffed with heavy guns and enough armor to help the Everchanger withstand more incoming firepower.

Since it wasn't meant to fight in melee battles, its mobility characteristics were abysmal. This not only made it easier to maximize its firepower, but also saved Ves and the design teams working on it a lot of work.

ᴘ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀ ɴ ᴏᴠᴇʟ The only challenging aspect was making it resonate with Venerable Joshua. No one in the Larkinson Clan could make that happen since none of them were able to design expert mechs independently.

Fortunately, Ves had already asked Professor Benedict to lend a hand to fulfill this requirement during his last visit to the Cyclical Engine.

Once the Larkinson Clan completed the Titan-3 Project and the Megagunner Project, Ves could easily foresee Venerable Joshua exerting almost as much power as Patriarch Reginald Cross on the battlefield!

The former might be weaker than the latter, but if Venerable Joshua obtained a lot more powerful gear, he could easily close the gap as long as the Cross Patriarch had yet to receive his Mars Project!

Of course, Ves didn't think a trick such as mounted wargear could compete against a ludicrously powerful quasi-first-class expert mech.

There were downsides to mounted wargear. Blindly making them as large as possible had detrimental effects on an expert pilot's ability to resonate with the enlarged mech frame.

Although few people ever thought about it, an expert pilot's willpower only extended past a certain distance.

They were still humans, after all. Their ability to extend their power into giant war machines had a limit. If this wasn't the case, who could stop them from resonating with 10 kilometer-long juggernauts? The idea was preposterous!

Expert pilots usually possessed optimal ranges where they could exert their strength to full effect. This made sense considering that certain people thought of them as proto-ace pilots. Their domain fields were still rudimentary and their ranges were much more limited.

It was no problem for them to extend their full power into the frame of a typical expert mech, but once their size surpassed that of a heavy mech, it became a lot harder for expert pilots to exert their strength at full efficiency!

All of this created a lot of implications, but the most important one to take note of was that the additional power bestowed by mounted wargear had to be offset by the drop in efficiency of true resonance.<del>panda novel</del>

The direct consequences of this was that the Everchanger gained substantial advantages when fighting against conventional opponents, but became a lot less efficient when fighting against expert mechs!

For this reason, it was not always the best choice to mount these heavy but unwieldy pieces of wargear onto the Everchanger.

Since loadouts such as the meat suit added a huge amount of bulk to the Everchanger, it effectively turned into a superheavy mech with all of the downsides that were associated with this weight class!

The meat suit might be powerful enough for Venerable Joshua to crush hordes of regular mechs, but against a competent expert mech such as the First Sword, it could easily be outmaneuvered!

Just like how a light mech could easily dismantle a heavy artillery mech up close, an expert melee mech could make mince meat out of the slow and sluggish meat suit!

The only way for the Everchanger to stand a fighting chance against a powerful melee mech was to purge the meat suit and answer the challenge in its base form.

Ves and Dr. Perris were well aware of the pros and cons of mounted wargear.

They understood that solutions such as the Titan-3 Project and the Megagunner Project were primarily targeted towards alien warships and massive concentrations of enemy mech forces.

The two mech designers proceeded to discuss the specifics of what they needed to do in the coming weeks in order to complete the meat suit design.

Once they were finished, Ves finally recalled the original reason why he had come to the Dragon's Den.

"I need your help on another project." He told her. "I am working on a small side project where I have encountered a wall. I can't make further progress if I rely on my existing solutions, but I believe that resorting to biotechnology will help me overcome this obstacle."

Dr. Perris grew curious what caused the patriarch to this point. "Please explain."

He briefly presented his living coin press project and explained the need to create a production process that could autonomously produce living coins according to his design.

What he learned about the Titan-3 Project gave him greater confidence that biotechnology could provide him with the solution that he was looking for. If the Titania's biomatter reacted so well to Venerable Joshua, then it should react well to his design philosophy as well!

After all, Ves and Joshua's life domains were closely related to each other.

Dr. Perris paused for a minute as she took in the explanation. She silently skimmed through the documents that he had sent to her comm.

Since Ves needed her help, he freely passed on his research notes and documentation.

The woman eventually smiled. "You are not the first person who developed the desire to produce coins through growth. The biotech sector has already come up with an efficient solution that we can adapt to our specific needs. Let me show you an example."

She used her comm to project what appeared to be a fruit tree.

Different from a regular tree, the ‘fruits' growing from its branches were translucent orbs that clearly showed the coins growing inside their center!

"This… is a money tree."

"…Are you serious?"

It looked like a gimmick rather than a serious production method to Ves!

"I am aware of what you are thinking." Dr. Perris said. "Biomechs are grown in a different way, but that is because they are too large and heavy to be grown from trees. Coins are considerably smaller, so we do not have to resort to a cumbersome means of production. Rather than relying on nutrient pools or production wombs, we can simply formulate a tree that can grow the coins like fruit seeds. Although the growth process is slower, the consistency in output and the ease in production is unparalleled. Once we have planted the money trees in a friendly environment, we only need to feed their roots with nutrients and raw materials in order to grow coins on a continuous basis."

Once Ves got over the joke-like nature of money trees, he realized that it was an effective solution!

The coins were grown by a genuine living organism. Even though growth them like fruits was not the same as giving ‘birth' to them, Ves believed that the differences shouldn't matter too much.

Depending on the size of the trees, they could grow a large quantity of coins at a time, thereby fulfilling the criteria for mass production!

"How hard is it to grow multiple money trees?" Ves asked.

"It should not be an insurmountable challenge." Dr. Perris replied. "The main difficulty lies in designing the trees. Their bioprogramming along with their material composition needs to be exactly right. Once we have found the right configuration, we should easily be able to grow the trees, though that introduces its own problems."

"How so?" Ves curiously asked.

"Without additional protective measures, outsiders may be able to grow the trees as well, thereby risking our exclusivity. We will need to put in extra effort to ensure the money trees will only be able to grow our coins when it remains in our hands."

"I see."