The Mech Touch

The C-Man went into service after conducting a sufficient number of testing sessions.

The Larkinson Clan as well as Melmen Advanced Systems gathered a lot of data on the performance of the new expert brawler mech and the incredibly powerful TESMAS that adorned its frame.

The expert mech and its various parts and systems did not show any signs of concerns during these long and exhausting tests.

The C-Man actually exceeded the expectations and predictions made by the mech designers during numerous instances!

There were multiple reasons why this was the case. Venerable Vincent's bond with the C-Man continued to grow at a rapid pace, allowing him to resonate with his expert mech to a greater degree.

The stronger the true resonance produced between an expert mech and an expert pilot, the more the pair were able to defy their limitations and impose their own will and desire into reality!

The performance boost even extended to the TESMAS, which produced both joy and consternation to the researchers working for Melmen Advanced Systems.

On the one hand, TESMAS was designed to become the flagship product of the development company. The better it performed, the more it was able to convince other customers that it was worthwhile to invest in this new but brilliant phasewater-infused smart armor system!

One the other hand, the distortions that skewed the performance of the C-Man's TESMAS made the gathered data less representative. It was hard for Melmen to figure out what part about the C-Man's application of TESMAS was transferable to the base version of the product and what was specific to the expert mech and its expert pilot.

These were manageable downsides, though. Melmen had many other ways of testing the performance of its TESMAS. It was also undeniable that the C-Man provided a very useful platform to verify the overall functions of the smart armor system.

Already, Professor Neihy Almar and her expansive team of scientists and engineers were already in the process of tweaking and updating the design of their main product in light of what they learned.

Their company had also grown a lot busier as dozens of potential clients inquired about TESMAS.

None of that was important to the Larkinsons. Even though their clan had taken minority ownership in Melmen Advanced Systems, they were all preoccupied with their own priorities.

To Gloriana, the most important consequence of completing the C-Man Project was how much her work progressed her design philosophy.

She spent many hours with the C-Man. Aside from monitoring and evaluating its performance, she also kept a close eye on how its ongoing transformation process improved the physical parameters of the expert mech.

As Gloriana gained a better understanding of the effect of the Divine Markers and the influence of the C-Man's superfans, she ultimately obtained mixed results.

The good news was that the strengthening effect definitely existed. While it was difficult to detect, the sensors that recorded the C-Man's physical properties and performance metrics were able to detect minor improvements in a number of areas.

Even when accounting for Venerable Vincent's notable growth and his constantly improving cooperation with his battle partner, there was no denying that the expert brawler mech was performing better relative to its physical design and construction!

The bad news was that the rate of improvement still remained glacial. The spiritual feedback from Venerable Vincent along with the feedback provided by tens of thousands of fans were not significant enough to substantially increase the rate of improvement.

"It will still take years for the C-Man to display a qualitative difference in performance." Gloriana frowned.

This put her in an awkward situation. She craved validation but the glacial evolution process prevented her from determining whether her new god body method truly allowed her to elevate the physical form of her expert mechs.

Still, the C-Man already offered sufficient proof that the concept was viable. As long as Gloriana continued to work on it and implement god bodies in other expert mech designs, she could gather more data and make comparison studies.

Fortunately for her, she still had several more expert mech design projects on her plate!

The C-Man was the first expert mech that she managed to complete in this design round. There was still the Blade Chaser Mark II as well as a handful of expert mech projects started by the Larkinson Clan's allies.

Of all of the ongoing projects, none captured her imagination more than the Mars Project.

"What would it be like if I can apply my revolutionary god body method with an expert mech that is much closer to matching the power of an ace mech than the Bolvos Rage?"

She practically salivated at the thought!

In fact, Gloriana already held a few talks about this topic with Professor Benedict Cortez.

The lead developer of the Cross Clan's flagship project expressed a lot of interest in Gloriana's unique innovation, but he was not willing to take too many risks.

It was highly irresponsible to gamble on experimental solutions on a mech design project that literally determined the future of the Cross Clan!

As such, Professor Benedict was only willing to allow Gloriana to apply her latest method to the Mars Project if she was able to prove the viability and power of her new solution.

"It is definitely viable!"

As Gloriana wrapped up her work on the C-Man Project, she began to spend more time on her other mech design projects.

She was not in a hurry to complete the Blade Chaser Mark II which was a bit more standard compared to the C-Man Project.

In contrast, the Mars Project was filled with elements that made her excited! The Cross Clan invested a lot of MTA merits and phasewater to acquire the rights and materials to utilize the best and most impressive materials and components for the ambitious expert mech design!

Since the Mars Project was meant to be a powerful and sensitive expert mech, Gloriana was not allowed to work on it remotely.

Each time she wanted to work on the Mars Project or hold a substantive discussion with Professor Benedict, she needed to visit the Cross Clan's branch on Davute.

This was not a serious burden as the Cross Clan had also decided to build a compound at another available plot of land inside Industrial District 2.

Gloriana only needed to take a brief shuttle ride to arrive at the Cross Production Complex.

Unlike the Larkinson Clan that partially turned its own production complex into a cat-infested playground, the Cross Clan adopted a much more professional approach and did not do anything strange with its branch site.

The Cross Production Complex resembled the site of a high-security military manufacturing complex. Mechs and fixed defenses were ubiquitous as the Crossers maintained constant vigilance against any form of intruders.

Just like Ves, the Crossers had suffered betrayal in the past and could never bring themselves to trust other institutions as much as before.

The CPC was not only meant to concentrate the Crossers in a single, defensible location, but also provided the people assigned to the branch with a quick channel to evacuate off the planet.

"Boys." Gloriana muttered as she observed the alert Crosser guards and the looming Crosser mechs.

At least the Larkinsons put serious effort into making their own production complex more pleasant.

Though she initially disliked the lack of professionalism of the Cat Nest, she soon came to adore the happy and cheerful atmosphere of her home and workplace.

The Crossers appeared to be fine with living in a strict and disciplined environment. Having visited the CPC plenty of times in the past had given Gloriana a good understanding of how the Crossers embraced militarism to a greater degree than the Larkinsons.

While the Crossers knew how to have fun and relax when they were off-duty, they aimed to be consummate professionals when they were on the job.

Gloriana approached a facility called the Primary Cross Lab.

This was the Cross Clan's equivalent of the Genesis Lab and it was where the Crossers conducted all of their main mech design activities.

The Crossers had already hired a batch of mech designers a few months ago and already intended to hire additional batches in the future.

Hundreds of mech designers and specialists worked at the Primary Cross Lab every day, though most of them only played an assisting role to the Cross Clan's design projects.

Gloriana passed through the mandatory security checks without any incident and arrived in a room where Professor Benedict performed most of his design work.

Similar to the Larkinson Clan, the Cross Clan invested a lot of funding and resources to expand its lab and workshop facilities.

The Crossers actually invested more in these areas as Benedict possessed much higher requirements than a group of Journeymen.

As a Senior who had long aspired to become a Master, the Mars Project was too important to Professor Benedict. He did not hesitate to spend and squander much of the fortune of the Cross Clan to further his personal interests and ambitions!

If he succeeded, then the Cross Clan would not only gain a powerful Master Mech Designer, but might also welcome the Golden Skull Alliance's first ace mech pilot!

If Professor Benedict was unable to deliver on his promises, then much of the investment would still be worth it. After all, the Mars Project was still strong whether Patriarch Reginald broke through or not. Meanwhile, the Senior and the growing industrial wing of the Cross Clan were able to design mechs and develop other products much better and faster with all of the new processing banks and other helpful equipment!

When Gloriana entered Professor Benedict's personal workplace, the Senior was already in the process of studying and tweaking the design of the Mars Project's many integrated weapon modules.

"Madame Gloriana." The Senior spoke up. "I have heard good news about your newly completed C-Man. I suppose you are here to talk about your god body method?"

The young mother nodded as she approached the central design table. "That is correct. I have brought the data and documents you wanted. They contain all of the proof and analysis you need to make a judgment."

"Please transmit the files so I can peruse them immediately."

Gloriana did so. As soon as Professor Benedict received her materials, the older mech designer rapidly read through the files with the help of his implant.

"Hmmm. The data is rather sparse." Benedict remarked. "I did not notice any drastic performance boosts when I observed the C-Man in action during its public debut. Still, I am pleased with the data that you have provided. They tentatively support your hypothesis and proof that a mechanism to upgrade a mech's physical properties is not a ludicrous idea. However…"

"I'm aware of the shortcomings and limitations of my data, but the C-Man is still a recent existence. I can provide additional data to you in two or three weeks. The changes over time should be more obvious at that point."

"The Mars Project is still months away from completion. I can afford to wait until you have provided more proof. I can already see from the trends that it would be beneficial to implement your god body method on my expert mech design, but I cannot make such a drastic choice based on limited empirical data. If there is one lesson that I have learned over the course of my long design career, it is that it is never wise to cut corners. Just because you are excited does not mean you are allowed to break the rules."

"I understand."

"Now that you are here, come and inspect the Mars Project's transphasic armor system. What is your opinion?"

Gloriana was already familiar with this extravagant feature. TESMAS was not the only recent product that took advantage of the properties of phasewater to achieve new levels of performance.

There were plenty of development companies that were busy with inventing many new transphasic alloys that were much tougher than ordinary materials and also possessed a host of phasic properties!

The transphasic armor system selected for the Mars Project was one of the more extravagant solutions available for use. It demanded a whopping 11 kilograms of phasewater in order to produce enough alloy to protect both the exterior and the interior of Patriarch Reginald's future expert mech!