The Mech Touch

To say Gloriana wasn't nervous was like saying that she was no longer interested in buying handbags.

Though her body didn't shake, her mind and spirit were abuzz with nervous energy. She could not predict with certainty what might happen once the TESMAS covered the open frame of the C-Man like a living coat.

The C-Man would not truly be complete and whole before this occurred.

She wished she could foresee with greater certainty of what would happen in a couple of minutes. However, every simulation and every calculation she made in the past few weeks granted her no meaningful information of what would happen at the final moment.

That was because the phenomena she paid attention to had never been done before. She could not look back on prior cases and experiences to develop accurate expectations. She was also unable to make use of the formidable processing power available at the Genesis Lab because there was no way to express a concept like a god body with math!

Compared to someone who took a lot more comfort in numbers and simulation results like Gloriana, her husband was a lot more relaxed in this kind of situation.

Ves husband walked up to her and embraced her in a reassuring hug. "You did the best you could. You have reasons to be confident in your work. Believe in yourself. Even if the C-Man doesn't turn out as great as you expected, that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. You can always continue to iterate on its design and work on its parts until the expert mech truly reflects your vision."

His wife softly snorted. "That is easy for you to say. Your experiments always seem to work out in one way or another."

"That is the charm of making living products. You can always expect a result as life always finds a way. The only problem is that it is difficult to dial in a more precise result."

Gaia came to mind. Although Ves was undoubtedly the creator of his most powerful design spirit yet, the explosive growth of his latest spiritual product exceeded his imagination.

He hoped that the completed C-Man mech would not follow the same route. Though it was the most expensive Larkinson expert mech to date, he did not think it was likely that it would go out of control.

As he turned his attention back to the soon-to-be whole expert mech, his anticipation rose to a new height.

The C-Man was already alive and well in a sense. He succeeded in transferring the living personality of the B-Man in a new frame.

Though the living mech originally felt that the new C-Man frame was a bit too foreign, the compatibility between the two was so high that they smoothly integrated together!

Now, the final piece of the puzzle was about to fit itself into place.

Ves still found it astounding to see how a tide of tiny nanomachines was able to exert so much power. Even at this distance, he could feel there was nothing he could do if the nanomachines ever managed to engulf his body!

The TESMAS slowly crept up the legs of the C-Man.

The lower side of the expert mech was much more solid than the upper side of the machine. This was because it was important to ensure that the mech retained a stable base if anything went wrong with its TESMAS.

The fluid wave of rippling metal slowly crept up the legs and began to flow up to the torso. Everyone present in the workshop held their breaths as the TESMAS continued to fill up the voids and cavities that it was meant to occupy.

A lot of TESMAS diverted to the arms of the C-Man. As a brawler mech, it was critically important that its arms were thick, strong and resilient.

However, the C-Man derived a lot of combat power from harnessing the capabilities of TESMAS. It would be a waste to keep them away from the arms.

From the moment the tide of TESMAS engulfed the arms, the C-Man truly reached its final form!

A sense of completion exuded from the finished expert mech as the mech had become whole in spirit and body.

The mutual interaction between the two produced numerous different effects, the chief one being that every single part began to harmonize with each other!

Although nothing looked different from the naked eye, those with high sensitivity towards spirituality could sense that the C-Man had undergone an invisible metamorphosis that made it seem as if the machine had risen to another level!

"This…" Gloriana trailed as she could not find the words to describe what was happening.

The way the C-Man's structure and especially its TESMAS seemed to elevate beyond their initial state was a telling sign that an entirely new force was at work!

Gloriana's mood slowly lifted higher and higher as the C-Man continued to experience this gradual but unmistakable effect.

"The C-Man's frame… is evolving!"

While she had yet to gather any solid proof that the ongoing transformation was beneficial to Vincent and his new expert mech, her intuition strongly hinted to her that one of her hopes had finally come true!

She wasn't the only one to recognize what was happening.

"Congratulations, honey. While it hasn't turned into a masterwork mech, its physical frame is definitely undergoing interesting changes."

"A god body…" She whispered.

An increasing sense of elation overcame her mind. Although the C-Man seemed to change at a snail's pace, she knew that establishing this state was the most critical part of her work!

It would have been much worse if the C-Man's frame remained completely static. A lack of change suggested that Gloriana's ambitious plan to create a god body had failed.

"Let's take a closer look." Ves suggested. "I'm interested in studying this strengthening effect. This is the first time that I've come across a deliberate mechanism to evolve a physical machine by harnessing the power of spiritual energy. If this phenomenon managed to stick, then you have truly made a major leap in your design ability!"

Before the mech designers approached their latest expert mech, they first took the time to scan and examine the C-Man in order to ensure it was sound.

The first-class workshop suite included plenty of sophisticated scanning and detection equipment so it did not take long to complete this process.

Nothing stood out to them. The C-Man was built almost exactly according to plan.

Gloriana also took the time to test a few of the mech's active systems by remote. The nanomachines that made up the TESMAS still behaved as intended and did not show any deviations despite absorbing spiritual energy through their god markers.

Nothing was stopping them from taking a close and intimate look at their latest prestige product anymore.

"Let's go!"

Ves picked up Aurelia who was trying to understand what made the mech so important and moved towards the exit of the control room.

Everyone else followed suit and floated down until they stood before the impressive expert mech.

The closer they came to the mech, the more they could feel its powerful presence. As a powerful machine that was transitioning towards a third order living mech, the C-Man exuded plenty of strength and vitality!

Ves could feel much clearer than other mechs how active it was. Part of it was because mechs that utilized smart metal needed to be powered at all times in order to keep the nanomachines in control.

Another part of it was due to the mysterious process that Gloriana had succeeded in bringing in motion!

Now that he came close enough, he could sense much more of what was going on with the C-Man.

The newly completed expert mech was celebrating its new and improved form!

Not only that, the C-Man also generated a dynamic air that made it seem as if it was constantly accumulating more power.

There was the sense that the C-Man was constantly moving forward despite looking unchanged on the surface.

"Wooo… so shiny…" Aurelia whispered.

"Yes, sweetie. The C-Man sure looks shiny, doesn't it?" Ves smiled as he rocked her daughter's tiny form. "It's a mech that is designed to be the center of attention. No one will be able to miss it on the battlefield."

The C-Man looked spectacular in a heroic way.

Just like its previous B-Man incarnation, the expert mech featured a prominent golden muscle cuirass.

The difference from its predecessor was that the C-Man's lines and contours were even more impressive and exaggerated than before!

The fact that its surface actually consisted of nanomachines that adopted specific shapes and colors meant that the C-Man could always alter how it looked.

The proportions of the brawler mech were significantly different from that of other mechs. Since its arms served as its primary weapons, they looked considerably beefier than usual, up to the point where the C-Man almost started to resemble a gorilla!

Of course, Venerable Vincent wanted his expert mech to resemble his own physique as much as possible, so it was still an upright humanoid mech for the most part.

One of the more impressive aspects of the C-Man was how much in tune it was to Bravo. The B-Man already integrated fairly well with the design spirit but the C-Man seemed to take it a step further.

This was a feature that both Ves and Gloriana had worked on in order to ensure that Venerable Vincent could more easily get in sync with the design spirit that had accompanied him for a number of years.

Already, Ves could feel his blood pumping faster. Bravo stood out increasingly more as a motivator. The design spirit seemed to have found its niche as an influence that was capable of igniting an individual's competitive drive!

However, above all else, what truly mattered to Gloriana was the fact that the C-Man was truly evolving to a different state.

Though Gloriana could not yet tell the direction of her expert mech's physical evolution, she truly hoped that it was moving closer to becoming a masterwork mech.

If the C-Man truly followed this trajectory, then she would have succeeded in creating a revolutionary new method that had the potential to make masterwork mechs much more ubiquitous than before!

Even though producing masterwork mechs through growth was not as satisfying as getting everything right from the start, Gloriana would not say no to having her work improve by themselves!

"What is happening to the physical structure of the C-Man shares a remarkable resemblance to what is happening to our daughter's body." Ves observed.

He examined his daughter who was clinging to his side. Aurelia received a number of spiritual treatments from Ves and the Superior Mother that had fundamentally set her apart from other humans.

The fact that Aurelia's body cells were able to absorb spiritual energy had always caused Ves to wonder what it meant.

All he could figure out was that the process was probably beneficial. He thought it was only possible to empower organic life forms in this manner, but Gloriana had clearly proved to him that it could also apply to inorganic products!

This was a huge breakthrough and one that might have profound implications if the C-Man's gradual evolution process yielded more drastic results in the future!

Ves slowly frowned. "We can all see that the C-Man is changing, but… at this rate, it would probably take years before we can observe a measurable increase in performance."

"Your assessment is incorrect." Gloriana shook her head. "What you see is merely the beginning. Haven't you forgotten what I told you about the mechanisms of a god body? The C-Man isn't meant to be hidden away. It is meant to be seen and admired. Let us take a long rest. Once we have recovered, let us introduce our latest expert mech to the rest of our clan!"

She was right! They did not spend so much time on developing such an iconic-looking mech just to remain hidden away!