The Mech Touch

"Do you have any questions, Mr. Larkinson? You appear confused at this moment."

What could Ves say to all of this? He had become so overwhelmed by Master Dervidian's change in attitude and unflinching praise of god pilots that he felt as if he was speaking to the wrong person.

Did he mistakenly call it a religious cult?

Had the MTA pulled off a prank where they connected him to a doppelganger of the MTA Master who had no compulsions about spouting nonsense?

Ves even began to suspect that this was all an elaborate ruse!

Perhaps the mechers set up an elaborate and convincing test where they wished to see his reaction towards this sudden and unexpected shift away from science and rationality.

Was this their way of determining whether he held sympathies towards the ideals and methodologies of the Five Scrolls Compact?

If this was the case, then it was all the more important for Ves to retain his reason and good sense!

No matter whether this was a ruse or not, it was extremely important for Ves to keep presenting himself as a mech designer rather than a deranged worshiper of god pilots.

In order to minimize instances where he could possibly lose control over himself, he ignored the wider and more profound issues surrounding god pilots and focused on a more limited subject.

"Can you tell me the god pilot that was responsible for turning the boy in the footage into a potentate? Is this an ability that each god pilot possesses, or is it only limited to a single individual?"

Master Derividian's look of devotion did not recede at all. Instead, he displayed even more reverence towards the god pilot that he was about to introduce!

"You have the great honor and privilege to witness our most important god pilot in action. While it is true that all god pilots are supremely powerful in their own right, their ability to express their might is largely based on their specializations. They are most adept at changing reality that they have grown familiar with for many years. That is not to say they can perform feats outside of their own preoccupations, but the difficulty is so high that it is not efficient for them to spend their time on broadening their powers. They can do much more by deepening their existing specialties and developing different and more powerful applications of their divine strength."

Once Master Dervidian got that out of the way, he no longer tarried any further and introduced the identity of the god pilot in question.

"The god pilot that you have just witnessed is a visionary and a leader that is of great significance to us. He is none other than Divine Hussain Albedo, the Chosen Human."

As soon as the MTA Master spoke the god pilot's name and title, he looked as if he was about ready to bend to his knees and press his palms together.

That was how high of a regard that Dervidian held towards this specific god pilot!

To be fair, Ves couldn't blame the older man for displaying this conduct.

Every god pilot known to the public was powerful and utterly exceptional. The public biographies surrounding these peerless soldiers might not contain every detail that had shaped their unique and remarkable journeys, but they contained enough content to give everyone a shallow impression of what they were about.

Divine Hussain Albedo was one of the more notable among the group of pilots who had also attained the pinnacle of their shared profession.

"The only mech pilot to have ever attained S-grade genetic aptitude." Ves softly gasped.

Even he couldn't maintain his composure anymore. The Chosen Human was just that impressive in the mech community!

Ever since humans started to measure the genetic aptitudes of people, they adopted a uniform and standardized system of measurement.

Ves had no idea how it exactly worked and how it defined the different grades, but everyone simply accepted that people could all be categorized by their letters.

The conventional grading system ranged from A to F, though there were some experts that claimed that the bottom needed to be extended with G for whatever reason.

In any case, every single human that was put through a measuring device, which was actually just a neural interface apparatus that slightly simulated the act of forming a man-machine connection with a mech, performed differently due to many different reasons.

It was too complicated and convoluted to express a person's ability to interface with a mech through all of these complicated neurological factors, so the scientific community as well as the general public embraced the grading system that was used to this day.

Of the two extremes, F or maybe G denoted zero chance of being able to interface with a mech.

The vast majority of humans fell within this unfortunate category. Ending up with at least F-grade genetic aptitude was basically a declaration that piloting mechs was never an option for the individuals in questions.

Since there were people who lacked the talent to pilot mechs, there were also people who possessed an abundance of this quality!

A-grade genetic aptitudes were long considered to be the gold standard in the piloting profession. The brains as well as many other aspects of a mech pilot's body and mind adapted so well to forming man-machine connections with mechs that it was as if they were made for the purpose!

Of the potentates that were lucky to develop such excellent conditions, they were further divided into three sub-categories.

Those who scored A- were maybe a bit further away from perfection, but for all practical purposes they were more than talented enough to rise with ease.

The ones who attained a plain A-grade were much fewer in number, but more more desirable by every employer of mechs. Each of these talents were so unreasonable that they could advance to the rank of expert pilots with ease as long as they did not make any stupid mistakes.

As for the extremely rare case that a potentate emerged with a genetic aptitude that scored A+, so many organizations would fight over this heaven-blessed talent that it was crazy!

Not even the MTA was above competing against its lessers in order to attain these exceptionally talented mech pilots!

From what Ves had learned, those whose genetic aptitudes reached A+ had pretty much reached the physical limitations of how high it could go. Their brains, nerves and other physiological parameters were as good as they could be. There was no further way for them to improve and thereby form a stronger and more comprehensive man-machine connection.

It was no surprise that mech pilots A+ genetic aptitudes not only possessed great assurances of advancing to the rank expert pilot, but also possessed much better chances of advancing to the rank of ace pilot!

This was the primary reason why everyone scrambled to fight for these peerless mech pilots!

The chance an ordinary mech pilot was able to advance to ace pilot was similar to the chance of winning a lottery.

The chance that an A+ genetic aptitude mech pilot was able to accomplish the same feat was similar to the chance of winning a dice roll or a coin flip.

There were no absolute guarantees that anyone with such excellent genetic aptitudes could undergo two major breakthroughs in their lifetimes, but those who had the luck of attaining A+ were definitely in the best position to race through the ranks!

For a long time, the mech community assumed that A+ genetic aptitude was the upper limit of what was possible.

That was until Hussain Albedo came into the picture.

Several generations after the start of the Age of Mechs, no one suspected that a potentate could emerge that performed far better than the few lucky children that achieved grades as high as A+.

In fact, the original testers of an ordinary third-rate state in the galactic heartland first thought the testing apparatus had glitched.

It took extensive trials and examinations before the experts were able to determine that Hussain Albedo was able to establish a man-machine connection that was so much better than anything recorded in history that it surpassed the previous record!

"The talent exhibited by this young man cannot be categorized as A+ anymore. His genetic aptitude has attained a state above this… my recommendation is that we should expand the existing scale of genetic aptitude and introduce a new S-grade to do justice to Mr. Albedo's unprecedented performance!"

The existence of Hussain Albedo was a miracle. No studies could explain how he was able to achieve such high performance.

If A+ genetic aptitude mech pilots already reached 100 percent of what was possible in mech piloting, then Hussain Albedo actually broke through this limit and achieved 120 percent or even higher!

The most remarkable fact about all of this was that Albedo was a pure baseline human!

Many researchers had studied his DNA and traced his entire family tree all the way back to the Age of Stars and never found any hint of artificial tampering.

The planet and city where he grew up in was ordinary and was not affected by any strange and energetic exotics.

Eventually, everyone concluded that Hussain Albedo was a product of coincidence. A coincidence that only occurred once an era!

No potentate had ever reached S-grade genetic aptitude after Albedo's explosive emergence, at least in public.

The man rose quickly after that, though much of what he experienced after confirming his supreme talent was rather murky.

Before envoys from the Terran Confederation or the Rubarth Empire could arrive, the MTA already recruited Hussain Albedo and packed him off to a secure location where he could be trained according to the highest standards!

After that, Hussain Albedo slowly faded from public attention as he did not show up again.

It was only a century later that his name became completely known throughout human space!

This was because Hussain Albedo successfully broke through a third time and became the newest as well as the youngest god pilot in human history!

"What?! How did he ascend so quickly?! He should be 75 years old at this time. I have never heard of a god pilot coming into shape so soon!"

Now that he had attained the highest rank known to the mech community, Divine Hussain Albedo no longer remained in hiding.

He began to make more active use of his immense clout and influence to fight for certain causes.

His advocacy of human supremacy combined with his unique and record-breaking talent had earned him the moniker of the Chosen Human.

Many people were convinced that Hussain Albedo was the protagonist of the era. His ridiculous talent as well as his insane strength in battle were so impressive that it was as if he had been blessed with the potential of their entire race!

These days, the Chosen Human earned a lot of fame and admiration for his steadfast protection of humanity's borders.

He consistently took up guard duty at the most contentious borders where human space directly pressed against the alien civilizations of the Milky Way that existed to this day.

In the occasional but extremely dangerous border incursions that happened from time to time, the Chosen Human made a powerful impression upon those who were lucky enough to see him in action.

One of his most remarkable powers was how well he was able to control biological organisms!

Any alien or bioconstruct that fell within his grasp simply melted apart as their very bodies disintegrated in Divine Hussain Albedo's powerful presence.

It was for this reason that the Chosen Human had long been considered to be a nemesis to every powerful astral beast or alien civilization that embraced biotechnology!

Of course, Divine Albedo was almost just as powerful against inorganic opponents. He just needed to invest a little more effort into crushing the warships fielded by the enemies of the human race.

As Ves recalled everything he knew about the most talented human mech pilot in history, he suddenly made an explosive guess.

"Is Divine Albedo… tied to the Transhumanist Faction?"

"His Holiness is more than that, Mr. Larkinson. He is the current leader of the Transhumanists."

"Oh."