The Mech Touch

Professor Benedict Cortez did not hold anything back when he sought out the best possible parts for the Mars Project.

The large amount of transphasic systems completely elevated the expert mech design project to a point where its theoretical performance parameters exceeded that of any expert mech that Professor Benedict had ever come into contact with in his long career!

As a former mech designer of the Friday Coalition, he had worked on and otherwise been able to witness all sorts of expert mechs. This was especially the case in the period where he believed that working on high-ranking mechs was the key for him to achieve his breakthrough.

Yet the majestic machines he had witnessed back at home were nowhere capable of matching the unique mech that he was about to design.

As one of the first high-tier expert mechs that could truly be called transphasic, the Mars Project was completely rooted in the Red Ocean.

Many traces of the previous iteration of the design had disappeared. The limitations and constraints that prevented the Cross Clan from applying some of the best possible tech that the Red Ocean had to offer were gone now that it had reached a new level of wealth and prestige!

The Mars Project centered around way more than the ambitious Magma Vein System that he had initially conceived to give his expert mech an additional edge in combat.

Compared to extravagant and powerful transphasic systems such as the Abasis Armor and the Pulsvar V-1, the Magma Vein System did not seem impressive in the slightest!

However, that was only the case if it remained unchanged after Benedict upgraded his original mech configuration.

Now that the budget for the Mars Project had expanded by an enormous degree, the Senior completely overhauled his original Magma Vein System and redesigned it so that it took advantage of much more expensive exotics and materials!

The efficiency of the Magma Vein System had been magnified to a degree where it was difficult to find any waste. The use of smaller components that nonetheless delivered superior performance also allowed Benedict to add a lot more redundancy to his flagship energy transmission system.

This meant that even if the Mars Project suffered serious internal damage, it should still be able to perform closer to its peak state with the help of redundant energy channels!

There were many other benefits to the upgraded Magma Vein System that were too small to mention but considerably increased its performance.

"The ultimate goal is to make this powerful mech as efficient as possible." Professor Benedict whispered to himself.

The power of the Mars Project was insane. It utilized an extremely luxurious power reactor that was meant to provide torrents of power to many of the extravagant parts and systems of the mech.

This was especially relevant to the ARCEUS System, which encompassed ten different integrated energy weapon systems!

Although the sizes of these weapons were not that exaggerated, each of these miniaturized guns were able to inflict damage comparable to full-sized rifles due to their highly sophisticated designs and premium materials.

It was practically impossible for the Mars Project to fire all 10 integrated weapon systems at the same time for an extended period of time!

The expert mech simply couldn't feed all of the energy needed to keep all of them active at the same time!

However, the Magma Vein System should be able to maximize the output as best possible.

In order to increase its optimization processes even further, Professor Benedict had made sure to add multiple powerful AI processing modules to his novel energy transmission system so that it was more capable of making the best possible use of each joule of energy!

The newly-revised Mars Project with all of its powerful transphasic parts and systems was already a powerhouse among high-tier expert mechs.

However, the problem with such powerful mechs was that their raw might became increasingly more difficult to control as their parameters rose to even greater heights. The amount of effort and resources required to maintain or increase its efficiency became exponentially harder.

Professor Benedict's Magma Vein System should be capable of making the Mars Project significantly more efficient. If he was able to make this powerful expert mech 20 percent more efficient, then not only would the mech be able to output more weapons at the same time without worrying about overloading any systems, but it would not have to worry about building up as much heat as well!

In fact, the Senior had already improved the heat management of the Mars Project as well. The original design called for the use of a small number of expensive dimensional heatsinks.

The advantage of this arrangement was that the Mars Project could constantly vent heat into bottomless dimensional pits.

The disadvantage was that the smaller quantity of heatsinks meant that the Mars Project would have to wait for them to do their work, thereby limiting the time interval that Patriarch Reginald was able to fight at full strength.

The raised budget and the abundant availability of phasewater allowed Professor Benedict to equip the Mars Project with triple the original number of dimensional heatsinks. Their models were also significantly more expensive as they utilized more phasewater to perform their roles.

Although it was impossible for the Cross Clan to repair the high-end heatsinks once they were broken, their existence allowed the Mars Project to have little to no concerns about overheating in practically every eligible environment!

In summary, the Mars Project was a powerhouse that was made for high-intensity ranged combat. It was the ultimate second-class expert hybrid mech that already possessed numerous first-class parts and systems to give it an extra edge over the competition.

Just the ace mech-grade Abasis Armor was enough to propel the Mars Project to the top of the hierarchy of expert mechs in the Davute region!

There shouldn't be any groups in the Krakatoa Middle Zone that were capable of outperforming the Mars Project when it came to raw specs!

Of course, despite the Cross Clan's immense commitment to this pivotal expert mech design project, neither Patriarch Reginald nor Professor Benedict were conceited enough to think their mech was invincible in Krakatoa.

"There are still actual ace mechs that are on a completely different level. If the standards of the Abasis Armor is anything to go by, then the design budgets for those top-end machines might actually exceed that of the Mars Project!

The Cross Clan's flagship project was ultimately limited by the rank of its intended pilot and the lack of access to exclusive high-end research projects.

During his search for better components and systems for the Mars Project, Professor Benedict held many discussions with many high-ranking officials and developers.

He had always gotten the sense that many research institutions and development companies that were attached to different powers had more surprises in store. They never revealed them because their best projects were solely reserved to their respective patrons.

"It's okay."

The Mars Project possessed more than enough power to keep Patriarch Reginald Cross busy in combat.

If the abundant amount of ranged solutions wasn't enough to keep the Cross Patriarch occupied, then he could always opt to defeat his opponents in melee combat.

The limbs of the Mars Project were not frail in the slightest. The legs were capable of unleashing forceful kicks if necessary while the arms could wield a variety of powerful one-handed and two-handed weapons.

The Whale-Cutting Saber that Ketis had once designed and forged for the Bolvos Rage was still great at cutting through massive opponents.

However, Patriarch Reginald possessed a preference for wielding axes, so the Senior opted to commission a custom transphasic one-handed battle axe from a weapon development company based in Davute.

The company estimated that it would take 90 grams of phasewater to impart the custom battle axe with transphasic properties.

This would grant the weapon with excellent armor-penetrating capabilities, which was extremely helpful if the Mars Project ever fought against another high-end expert mech, particularly ones that also took advantage of transphasic armor systems!

"Transphasic weapons and armor will become the new norm in high-end mech combat in the Red Ocean." Professor Benedict explained to the patriarch of the Cross Clan. "While they are not that common for the time being, once the supply of phasewater picks up and once all of the R&D organizations have developed cheaper and more efficient transphasic products, we should expect them to show up in more and more mid-tier and high-tier expert mechs in the next thirty years."

The expert pilot understood the underlying message.

"We'll be able to get ahead of the curve with the help of the new Mars Project." Reginald spoke.

"Precisely. Regardless of the disparity between expert pilots, the gulf in capabilities between a transphasic expert mech and a more conventional expert mech will already decide the outcome of a battle. Let me put it in a different way. If all of the Larkinson Clan's unique and quirky expert mechs confronted your Mars Project at the same time, they will unquestionably suffer defeat with any doubt!"

Patriarch Reginald's eyes blazed with satisfaction when he imagined such a fight.

The Larkinson Clan's expert mechs were not weak. Whether it was the Amaranto's extreme energy output or the Shield of Samar's indomitable defense, each of them performed way beyond the level of a typical mid-tier expert mech.

Nonetheless, the Mars Project's transphasic systems overwhelmingly trumped the performance of all of the parts utilized by the Larkinson expert mechs.

The Mars Project possessed greater firepower than the Amaranto, was able to rival the Dark Zephyr in straight-line acceleration and arguably possessed superior defenses compared to the Shield of Samar.

Sure, the Mars Project might not be able to replicate the more unusual and special properties of the Larkinson expert mechs such as the Everchanger's ability to adopt any glow or the Minerva's ability to connect and empower with every friendly unit within its range, but there was no need for the Mars Project to resort to those tricks!

As an offensive powerhouse beyond par, the Mars Project was designed from the beginning to crush enemy champions and defeat entire opposing armies by relying on absolute strength!

"The Mars Project is the embodiment of the Cross Clan!"

As such, as soon as Professor Benedict and Patriarch Reginald decided upon the mech concept and overall configuration of this extremely ambitious design project, the clan began to channel as much manpower and resources to its development as possible!

Many other goals and activities were left to the side as anyone and anything that could contribute to the Mars Project took priority.

The Cross Clan hired lots of additional personnel that could help with performing assisting work or developing specialized high-end subcomponents that were needed to complete this unprecedentedly powerful expert mech.

Even so, work on the expert mech design proceeded slower than planned. The exceedingly high complexity of all of the transphasic components and systems hindered the participating mech designers from properly handling them in the design.

Ves, Gloriana, Juliet and Sara Voiken had all signed up to participate in this extremely high-end design project, but they quickly found that their recent dabblings in phasewater tech left them woefully under-equipped to handle transphasic products such as the Abasis Armor and the ARCEUS System!

Even Professor Benedict himself was unable to do much better due to how little time he spent on studying phasewater applications himself!

"We will have to ask for help." The man eventually concluded.

As such, he actively brought in the developers of all of the transphasic systems as consultants. While this made it harder for the Cross Clan to keep the crucial mech design confidential, the technical expertise was absolutely essential to complete the Mars Project!

Months went by as Professor Benedict and the contributors from the Larkinson Clan cooperated with all of the external consultants to flesh out the ambitious design.

Each of the mech designers had added their own charm and specialties to this project. Being able to work with transphasic systems beyond anything they had ever handled in the past provided them with a precious opportunity to explore the upper limits of their design solutions!