The Mech Touch

"We can talk about rewards and concessions later." Master Dervidian said. "You have already earned enough MTA merits today. Do you truly need more?"

"Well… there is always a use for more MTA merits. What if I want to give a friend or relative the opportunity to undergo life-prolonging treatment? There are lots of people who are of such great value that I would like them to be of service a while longer."

Ves could think of plenty of people. His children, for example.

While he hoped that each of them would be brilliant enough to be able to earn the MTA merits required to secure their own life-prolonging treatments, he was willing to step in if any of them failed to live up to his expectations.

Venerable Joshua was also a good candidate. There were numerous ways for expert pilots to earn a lot of MTA merits or even a direct opportunity to undergo a round of life-prolonging treatment, but none of them were easy to obtain.

It was far more difficult to extend the life of a mech pilot and specifically an expert pilot due to their abnormal brains and other factors. This subsequently made it a lot more expensive for expert pilots to afford this exclusive treatment.

Unless Venerable Joshua did something that could amaze the MTA, Ves anticipated that he would likely have to make a costly investment in order to make his compatible mech pilot stuck around for a few additional centuries!

Sure, the expert pilot hadn't even reached forty years old as of yet, but it was never too early to start saving!

Aside from Joshua, there were many other people who might also need his help in order to extend their natural lifespans.

People such as Venerable Tusa and Calabast may provide a lot of benefits if Ves continued to keep them around. As long as the return on investment was great enough, he would definitely spend his MTA merits if he had any left to spare!

However, Master Dervidian did not look eager to pass on even more MTA merits.

"Please wait until I am done. You will find that what I am willing to offer to you will be more relevant and valuable than mere MTA merits."

Ves had no choice but to take Dervidian at his word.

He wasn't afraid that Dervidian would scam him at this point. The man had shown great sincerity and obviously wished to build a good relationship. It would be illogical to ask much of Ves only to give little in return.

He let out a deep breath as he leaned back on his chair. He briefly glanced around this large but spartan chamber.

The compartment looked nice enough, but it was devoid of furniture and absent of life. Ves supposed that made it easier for the mechers to sweep the place of bugs and make sure that none of the discussions leaked.

Ves decided to be more forthcoming about his own theories even though he lacked empirical backing for many of them. The Battle of Purgatory was the first truly successful use of the transcendence glow, after all. His previous lab experiments were all failures in his eyes.

"I don't know what the research groups you have talked about have done exactly. I don't have

access to their research files and research logs either. I have no clue what kind of theories that they have based their experiments upon. I can only make inferences based on what little information you have provided to me. If these elaborate and sophisticated experiments are close to what I imagine, then I think that they are all flawed in one important manner."

"In what aspect are they lacking, Mr. Larkinson?"

"Authenticity."

Dervidian raised his eyebrow. This was a short answer that nonetheless conveyed a lot of meaning. The MTA Master most certainly possessed his own understanding of this word.

What Ves had just given was a massive hint. A mech designer as intelligent as one of the key developers of minidrives must certainly be capable enough to develop his own theories after hearing this single prompt!

The gray-haired man looked incredibly thoughtful as he evaluated Ves' answer.

"Authenticity." The man said. "We know that pitting mech pilots in non-lethal combat rarely engenders breakthroughs. For whatever reason, there is a high correlation between putting them in actual battle and the occurrences of breakthrough. This is known to us. However, much of the research that I have referred to have indeed subjected the test subjects to actual combat situations, but their results are barely better than that of the control group. There are even instances where the test subjects perform worse than those that did not undergo any special treatment."

"That's because these attempts aren't authentic enough." Ves confidently stated. "All of these attempts to manipulate people's thoughts and emotions do not make much sense to me because anything the researchers program into them simply won't be authentic enough anymore. Using measures such as brainwashing or pills won't change mech pilots for the better. They simply turn the test subjects into people who aren't originally like this. This is what I mean by inauthentic."

The explanation did not make complete sense to Master Dervidian.

"Earlier, you told me that the glows of your mechs produce the same effect. They are invisible energy fields that induce specific swings in mood, emotions, thought and more. Why is your method authentic while all of the other methods devised by other researchers, many of which have accumulated much more knowledge than you and have won prestigious awards in their respective fields?"

"That's because they are targeting the wrong variables." Ves shrugged. "In my theoretical framework, what these failed experiments are doing is trying to affect the consequences rather than the root cause. The source of an expert pilot's extraordinary strength is not what is in his mind. The source is in their hearts."

"Hearts…?"

"Ah, forgive me. I often think of it in this way. It makes sense to me in my own perspective." Ves replied. "To me, a person's figurative heart is defined by their deepest essence. It is what they are when all of the surface stuff is stripped out of the way. It is the core of their existence and it is the most accurate reflection of someone's true self. The hearts of most people are unremarkable, but those with the talent and potential to become expert pilots are considerably more substantial in my view. In order to make these promising mech pilots advance to expert candidate or expert pilot, you need to stimulate their hearts."

There was a lot of profound content in Ves' explanation. Even though he worded it in a simple manner, the theory that he explained was quite consequential if it was an accurate reflection of reality!

"I have heard similar theories in the past." Master Dervidian revealed. "Although they do not use the word 'heart'. I find it to be a fitting term, if not the most precise. I can intuitively understand what you are talking about. Every mech pilot who has successfully advanced has developed strong and straightforward personalities. You can say that they wear their hearts up their sleeves because this quality of theirs has grown much stronger."

Ves grinned. "That is what I think so as well. I think that a person's heart or 'spirituality' as I like to call them is equivalent to the main body of a 'psionic life form'. It is the purest concentration of a life form that is not separated by any barriers or filters. It is the source of someone's personality and behavior. While I cannot show you pages and pages of empirical research results that back up my words, I have… experimented enough times to possess great confidence in my theories. My threshold for proof is much lower than that of other researchers. As long as it works, I'm fine with assuming that all of it is true."

For his part, the renowned MTA Master and veteran researcher did not mind this attitude.

"You are not the only mech designer who thinks this way." Dervidian smiled. "The mech industry moves quickly and competition constantly spurs on innovation. It takes too long to do each and every invention. Although I find this approach to be flawed, our mechs would be a lot less varied today if everyone displays much more caution. I only fear that our industry may be following in the footsteps of the biotech industry during the Age of Conquest."

Despite saying that, Master Dervidian did not sound eager to halt the breaks on innovation. He still showed a lot of excitement for Ves' dubious and unverified theories and assumptions!

Of course, Ves knew that most of Dervidian's confidence had to do with the concrete results that he achieved in the last battle. Solid proof was the best backing for any theory!

"To get back on the original topic, it is much easier for researchers to affect a mech pilot's surface thoughts and mood. However, a person's heart is much harder to manipulate since it is buried a lot deeper. In my view, it is not a tangible or material object. Only very few phenomena are able to affect a person's heart."

"And you just happened to master a number of these rare phenomena?" The MTA Master guessed.

"Yes. It might sound arrogant, but I have at least two strong design solutions that can affect people's hearts. First, I can design a living mech that directly interacts with mech pilots on a deep level. The man-machine connection greatly facilitates this interaction, although how exactly all of this works is still unclear to me. I do not possess a lot of depth in neural interface technology."

"Understandable. Do you know that you can exchange MTA merits to gain our permission to study this field and design your own neural interfaces? Given your specialty and your design focus, I highly recommend you to consider this option."

Ves briefly frowned. Neural interfaces were fiendishly complex and highly controversial to say the least. The stigma surrounding them was great, so much so that he feared attracting a lot of criticism and accusations if he happened to make a serious mistake.

What Ves was especially concerned about was getting accused of committing the same crimes that culminated in the Farund Affair!

Glows could easily be mistaken for brainwashing tools, but as long as Ves did not mess with neural interfaces, it became a lot harder for critics to tie him to the infamous case in the past.

"I will consider it." Ves cautiously replied. "I have many other plans and my advisors will certainly make their own suggestions on how we should spend our windfall of MTA merits. Spending any of it on gaining access to neural interface technology is not our highest priority."

"You will need it if you want to get more serious about designing your own expert mechs. Each of them must contain customized neural interfaces that are uniquely configured for individual expert pilots."

"I am aware of that detail."

If it came down to it, Ves was more than willing to pick up a neural interface specialist from the job market.

As long as the Larkinson Clan grew large and prominent enough, it shouldn't be too difficult to hire excellent talents in many rare fields.

Ves continued with his original explanation.

"Anyway, the second method that I can use to affect people's hearts is through glows. The theory why they can do this is rather complicated and a lot more speculative. Suffice to say, glows can affect mech pilots on a deeper level than all of those other surface methods. By stimulating their hearts in the right way during an intensive battle where they are already agitated, I can essentially tip them over an invisible threshold that enables them to reach a critical state."

"And this critical state is apotheosis?"

"Correct." Ves nodded and grinned. "This is how my transcendence glow works in a nutshell. Please take into account that it only produced a successful result once. I still need to perform a lot more 'tests' before I can be sure my theories are correct."

"What are we waiting for, then? Let us test your design solution and form a solid conclusion."

"Wait, now?!"