The Mech Touch

"Hihihi! Lucky, stay still. Come wear this!"

"Meoooowww!"

Lucky scrambled away but Clixie pounced on his metal form and held the gem cat in place long enough for an eager little girl to come up and place a pink tutu on his lower body!

This wasn't the first accessory that Aurelia had placed onto the cat. She had also put fluffy rabbit paws on each of his limbs and covered up his metal ears with big and fluffy white rabbit ears.

Once Aurelia finished equipping Lucky with a tutu, she pulled out a big round rabbit tail and put it on by stuffing the cat's ordinary tail into the pocket.

"There! You are a rabbit now! A lucky rabbit!"

"Meow meow meow!"

Lucky did not enjoy the transformation he experienced. He looked and sounded embarrassed as he looked across his body and saw how much softer and less cool he had become.

"Miaow miaow."

Clixie looked amused as she playfully mocked the other cat's new form. Of course, the Rubarthan Sentinel Cat also underwent a transformation.

Aurelia had turned her into a miniature version of a hybrid tiger mech. Metal antennas stuck out from the top of her head while her forelimbs were covered by large but blunted metal paws. What truly reinforced her mech vibe was the harness she wore around the midsection. Two laser cannon-like weapon mounts stuck out at the side.

Whenever Clixie made a specific body movement, the 'laser cannons' even shot out a harmless projected beam that mercilessly struck the lucky rabbit!

"Meow!"

"Miaow miaow!"

"Hihihihihi!"

As Aurelia continued to play with the pair of cats, her parents along with several other mech designers had become completely engrossed in their own fabrication work.

The AP-VEX superfab most definitely stole the show during this fabrication run. Though Ves had to exchange 5,000,000 MTA merits for this high-quality production machine, he felt it was worth at least thrice this amount due to how well it facilitated everyone's work processes.

As a first-class superfab, it was able to process and work with a much wider range of materials than the Larkinson Clan's previous ELKINE 69 3D printer.

Ves truly valued this feature as the AP-VEX was able to work with rare and volatile exotics that could significantly damage a lower-quality production machine that was not rated to handle these complications.

Since the AP-VEX was designed to work with first-class materials, its performance when handling second-class materials was a lot better in every parameter.

It worked much faster while maintaining an impressive degree of control and consistency over the output. This allowed people like Ves and Gloriana to pay less attention to ensuring the machine was doing a proper job and direct more of their focus towards refining the areas that needed to be as exquisite as possible.

The components they produced at a rapid rate were all smoother and more refined without any exception. Even the components that traditionally challenged the mech designers such as those with complicated shapes or integrated a large variety of different exotics came out without any noticeable flaws.

Of course, Gloriana wasn't completely satisfied with the quality of the output. She felt she could do even better. In fact, she knew she could do better if she or any of the others entered into the right state of mind.

She grew a bit glum after she realized that neither she nor anyone else entered into an inspired state.

"It looks like serendipity has not graced us this time." Ves remarked to her as he sensed her disappointment through the design network. "Don't get too hung up over it. Our fabrication run is already proceeding better than expected. The extra time given to us is truly useful in making sure we do a thorough job in fabricating all of the parts."

His wife glanced down at the hammer hanging on the side of his toolbelt. "When are you going to use your greatest tool?"

"I thought you didn't like to use my Hammer of Brilliance."

"I don't want to use it on myself, but that does not mean I see the value of it when applied to other mech designers. I believe that Tifi has yet to experience a tap on her head, am I correct?"

Both of them glanced towards Tifi who was currently in charge of operating the AP-VEX. The fantastic superfab was about to start the process of fabricating a lot of advanced artificial musculature parts that were critically important to a brawler mech like the C-Man.

"Do you want a turn, Tifi?" Ves asked.

The woman thought for a moment. She had already been briefed on the false inspired state that the Hammer of Brilliance could grant to people.

The first time was always the most special moment. That was because mech designers had accumulated an enormous amount of incomplete theories and uncertain guesses in their minds.

As soon as Vulcan touched their minds, it suddenly became a lot easier to tie all of this loose information and data into solid and coherent theories.

This was an incredibly valuable gain to any mech designer. In the best situations, a mech designer might even become so inspired that their subsequent performance approached the effectiveness of a genuine inspired state!

That also made the timing of this move a lot more important. The greater the accumulation, the greater the brilliance.

However, delaying for too long was also wasteful. Those who missed out on this effect might have missed out on profound improvements on their work and design philosophies that they could have attained a long time ago with a single whack from a hammer.

There was no right answer for a decision like this. Tifi hungered for progress, but she also felt that this was not the right time for her to receive Vulcan's blessing for the first time.

She eventually shook her head. "I would say yes if I was the lead designer of the C-Man Project, but that is not the case. I think it is better to wait until I am working on a mech that is truly mine."

"Fair enough."

Though Gloriana seriously contemplated whether she should make an exception and allow her husband to whack her head with his hammer, she eventually shook her head and threw the suggestion out of her mind.

She only needed to take a single glance at the container filled with TESMAS to understand that she wouldn't be able to apply herself as much in this fabrication run than usual.

It was better to save herself up for a run where she could exert much more control over her work.

"Besides, there are too many uncertainties surrounding the C-Man design. My priority lies in ensuring that my new ideas can even be realized in the first place. I can wait to perfect them in a subsequent design project once I understand my work better."

The days went by faster than expected. The rapid pace of work along with the reduced amount of problems made it so that everyone entered the zone where they did not remain too stuck in the moment.

Of all of the Larkinsons in the secure workshop, no one was more impressed and bedazzled than Venerable Vincent!

As he witnessed the new parts of his upcoming expert mech being constructed one by one, he felt he was witnessing a moment of history.

Soon, his old and broken B-Man would get dismantled before being completely rebuilt as a unique and innovative expert brawler mech!

As Vincent's willpower constantly spread its influence through the active design network and made everyone aware of how the C-Man should fit his personality, he also gained a deeper appreciation of the technical side of mechs.

Of course, unlike a well-educated and intellectually-minded mech pilot like Venerable Casella Ingvar, Venerable Vincent hardly gained any actual understanding of the theories and mechanics of how mechs were able to operate. His understanding of the more advanced systems such as TESMAS did not advance at all because the technical sophistication of this powerful nanomachine system was too far out of his reach!

However, that did not stop Vincent from absorbing the more general and digestible insights from the various mech designers.

"You look so fascinated, Vincent." Raella Larkinson spoke as she gently rubbed her growing belly. "Is the design network really so great?"

"I wish you could experience this as well, babe. It's unreal how I feel right now. It is as if I am actively taking part in the building process of my own mech." Vincent spoke as he gazed intensely at the AP-VEX superfab. "I always knew there was a lot of depth to mechs, but I never paid attention to these details. It's different now. I think I can recognize what makes one mech better than the other. I also know what parts of an enemy mech I should target in my next fights."

The benefits he received were way beyond that and he was still doing his best to absorb more insights while he still could.

In fact, every expert pilot that went through the same experience when their expert mechs were being fabricated had also made a lot of gains.

Commander Casella Ingvar gained the largest benefit from this experience. Not only was she able to learn the most due to her personal strengths, she was also in a position to apply these gains the most in her role as a legion commander and field commander!

"What amazes you the most about your upcoming expert mech?" Raella asked.

"I think… it's the fact that it is truly built for me and Bravo in every way." He said. "I didn't see it before, but now I understand a lot better how much thought that the mech designers put into my machine. Everything is designed with my piloting style in mind. They even took into account my likes and dislikes for the most part. Do you know that Gloriana is really trying to make me become a god with the C-Man?"

"How does that even work?"

Vincent shrugged. "Don't ask me. Whatever Gloriana is sharing through this funny network is really weird to me. She just thinks that whatever she has set up will definitely give me a huge surprise once my expert mech is ready."

He did not have to wait too long. After over two days of fabrication work, the Larkinson Journeymen completed the fabrication phase.

They utilized the workshop's powerful and sophisticated scanners to examine the fabricated parts en masse in order to check and recheck that they were all within tolerance.

Once they were satisfied with their initial work, they moved on to assembling the mech.

The workshop's assembly system was much more powerful and comprehensive than anything they previously worked with. This came in incredibly handy when they brought in the broken and crippled form of the B-Man and started to strip it down with care.

The objective of this upgrade process was to transfer the spiritual foundation of the old mech to an entirely new form, so Gloriana and the others had to disassemble and assemble the mech at the same time.

Fortunately, this was not the first time they adopted this Ship of Theseus approach. Ves paid a lot of attention to make sure that nothing went wrong on this front.

Soon enough, a fairly complete 'skeleton' with plenty of 'internal organs' took shape. The C-Man was already half-way functional, but it only needed to go through one critically important process in order to complete the powerful machine.

"It's time to apply the TESMAS." Ves spoke.

Gloriana nodded. She had already approached the secure container and went through the process of unlocking. Several beeps sounded out as she inputted the final code.

"Step back and get ready!"

Although no one expected the batch of TESMAS to run out of control, everyone still thought it was best to retreat inside protective enclosures before they commenced the critical step.

Once they adopted every possible safety precaution, Gloriana decisively pressed the button.

A tide of nanomachines slowly surged out of the container. It was as if solid matter had come to life!

Gloriana stared keenly at what was happening because this was the moment when she would learn whether her efforts bore fruit.

The time had come for her to see whether the C-Man was capable of evolving into a god body!