The Mech Touch

Aside from upgrading Lucky's equipment, Ves had also prepared a handful of quick upgrades and additions to the Phobos.

He quickly briefed Venerable Zimro on the new toys that he would get to play with on his upcoming deployment. A few pieces of equipment that Ves prepared for this mission sounded rather dubious to the expert pilot, but they were better than nothing.

"Good luck, Zimro." Ves said as he reached out and patted the expert pilot's shoulder. "Just do your best, but prioritize your continued safety above everything else. It is not essential for you to catch up with the yurzen raiding fleet while it is still en route. At most, we'll corner it after it has stopped in orbit of a planet."

The former intelligence operative firmly shook his head. "The Phobos and I will not let that happen if we can help it. An entire human colony is at risk. If we cannot stop this fleet in time, the yurzens and the puelmers will slaughter the colonists who haven't been able to evacuate. I am aware that saving the lives of these colonists is not a part of our core mission, but... I want to try and save them all. Our humanity is important. It keeps us sane and connected to our fellow humans. If we start disregarding the lives of others, we risk losing control."

The man sounded similar to a few other people that Ves talked to, but Zimro had personal experience in this matter. The times he spent while remaining exiled from his state and stuck in the Nyxian Gap had tested his integrity. He could have easily degenerated into a heartless pirate if he did not maintain his original values.

His honor and integrity was his strength. It was highly unusual for stealth mech pilots to possess so much decency, and Ves did not wish to suppress these character traits in the name of expediency.

However, that did not mean he was obliged to follow suit.

"The lives of our clansmen come first. Don't forget that, Zimro." He reminded the other man. "We are not that powerful, and we can only bear a limited amount of responsibility. Situations will arise today and in the future where we may fail to save to save humans from destruction. Don't beat yourself up to it. Get stronger instead. The more powerful you become, the more you can challenge the aliens that pose an existential threat to all of red humanity. As long as you are able to increase your resonance strength and learn how to hide your presence a lot better, We can use you and your expert mech to break open the defenses of more heavily defended alien fleets and strongholds. We can stop the alien offensives before they have time to ravage human space."

His words had a good effect on the expert pilot. Zimro Belson's fighting intent rose higher as he thought of how much more he could do when he and his expert mech grew stronger.

The Phobos had already proven his capacity to complete vital missions that other mechs would never be able to fulfill.

Even strong ace mechs such as the Jedda Sandivar and the Macharia Excelsia had little hope of disabling the warp drives of alien warships because they were far too easy to detect from a distance.

So long as the aliens noticed any human mech or starship on approach, they would instantly raise their defenses and implement countermeasures.

Fortunately, red humanity had begun to equip their carrier vessels with warp drives and superdrives at an increasing rate. The only problem was that the supply of phasewater was still too constrained to give every vessel the ability to engage in warp travel.

Once the Hidden Smile quietly separated from the main fleet and traveled to the mission location in advance, Ves knew he only had a limited amount of time to push through any upgrades in the short term.

The good news was that he had already managed to deploy the most critical upgrades to his mech legions.

The spread of both the Lesser and Greater Larkinson Metal Guardian Mantra had caused every living mech in the clan to become invigorated!

So many energy vortices appeared on every carrier and ship that the simultaneous cultivation of over 10,000 Larkinson mechs significantly disrupted the pattern of ambient spiritual energy around their fleet!

The availability of metal energy had become particularly problematic due to the sheer quantity of mechs sucking it away from the environment!

Ves did not foresee this problem at the start. It was quite detrimental to the collective cultivation of his living mechs if they all fought to grab the same shared resource!

It became even more important for him to diversify the cultivation methods for mechs and have them focus on absorbing other available energies instead.

"It's not that easy, however." He frowned.

The current cultivation method retained a high defensive focus due to being based on the Atmer Guardian Mantra.

If he wanted to implement more drastic changes, then he needed to start a long process of trial and error.

The only other way for him to resolve this problem was to acquire a lot of relevant cultivation knowledge, but that was not possible in the short term.

Ves had little choice but to set this matter aside and focus on completing other useful research.

He decided to go back to developing a viable dual cultivation method for his Carmine mechs and their bonded pilots.

Even though his clan only featured two Carmine mechs at the moment, both of them possessed a lot of importance to Ves.

The Bastion was the most powerful defensive mech of the Larkinson while the Blood Star literally kept his grandfather alive.

Their potential was also great, especially once they derived greater benefits from the Blood Pact.

In order to speed up the development of the two Carmine mechs and their pilots, Ves especially exchanged the Eternal Love Dual Cultivation Manual from the System.

Much of the contents of this enlightenment fruit were... unorthodox.

Ves would rather never know about all of the extreme measures the cultivators of this method were willing to embrace in order to attain greater strength.

Still, as long as Ves set aside the aspects that he objected to and focused solely on the more functional knowledge of this cultivation method, he managed to find a surprising amount of parallels with his own work.

Just like the Blood Pact, the Eternal Love Method depended heavily on the power of blood and affection.

Blood bonded the two cultivators together on a physical level.

Affection ensured the two parties were able to synchronize with each other on a mental and spiritual level.

A dual cultivation method did not have to satisfy the former requirement in order to become effective.

However, whoever came up with the Eternal Love Method discovered that there were additional ways to increase the effectiveness of dual cultivation if the two practitioners shared the same blood.

Bloodline was a big deal in the cultivation scene. There was lots of stuff that people of the same family could share with each other.

The Eternal Love Method sought to increase the yield of dual cultivation by bringing the two parties a lot closer together than normal.

The downside was that the consequences of breaking up a relationship became a lot more serious, but as long as the practitioners remained together, they could develop an unprecedented degree of shared power!

It reminded Ves a lot of the Gemini Family's so-called Destiny Teams.

He even suspected that the founders and ancestors of the Geminis based their unorthodox family practices around the Eternal Love Dual Cultivation Method in the past!

Whether this was true or not, the examples set by the Gemini Family clearly proved that the overall concept was sound.

Ves just needed to translate a dual cultivation method that was originally designed for a pair of humans into a form that was suitable between a human and a mech.

The work was not particularly difficult, but he had to spend a lot of effort and thinking power into developing altered cultivation processes.

"The key property that binds the two practitioners of the original method together is love." Ves determined while stroking his hairless chin. "Should I preserve this aspect in my modified dual cultivation method or is it better to change it to a different emotion?"

Ves decided to interview the only two pilots bonded with a Carmine mech in order to make up his mind.

"I don't love the Bastion like that." Venerable Jannzi shook her head. "I am already married with a man. It is not appropriate to share the same kind of affection towards anyone else, particularly a mech. It is absurd to think about marrying my mech and finding a way to have kids with her. Just the suggestion that I would be interested in such is insulting."

"I am just asking, Jannzi! Don't think too deeply about what I have just said. How would you best describe your relationship with your expert mech, both your old and new one?"

The female expert pilot adopted a wistful expression. "The Shield of Samar was my partner in crime, my best friend and the partner who always had my back, even to the very end. My relationship with the Bastion is slightly different, but she is just as important to me. It is difficult for me to choose who I love more, my family or my expert mech. I really don't want to choose between them. They are all precious to me. My life wouldn't be complete without their presence."

Ves looked intrigued. This was an interesting response.

"Do you consider the Bastion to be more of a friend or a close family relative?"

"I... don't know. Sammie was much more of a best friend to me, but my relationship with the Bastion has become a lot closer because we share the same blood. The Carmine System does stuff to us that makes us feel that we are part of the same family. I even have the idea that if we keep doing this for several years, we may start to blend with each other. It will become a lot harder to distinguish between me and my expert mech."

"Are you concerned about the consequences of deepening your relationship with the Bastion?" Ves asked.

Venerable Jannzi shook her head. "No. We know what ace pilots and ace mechs have to go through in order to take the next step. I am aware that it will still take many years before I can become an ace pilot. It will take even more years before I reach my limit as a senior ace pilot. Many accidents can happen along the way that can stop me from going any further. However... a pilot is allowed to dream, right? What if I reach that threshold? Since I will have to merge myself with my mech at that time, I do not have much of an objection if I can complete this vital step in advance. If the Blood Pact can truly make this happen... then doesn't that mean I can harness some of the power of a god pilot far in advance?"

"I don't think it works that way." Ves responded as he tried to depress Jannzi's expectations. "The reasons why god pilots and god mechs are so ridiculously powerful is not just because they have merged together. That is just a facilitating reason. Their real basis of strength is their highly developed willpower. This is the root of their legendary combat power."

"Shouldn't your work on upgrading the Blood Pact focus on strengthening that, then? Is it possible for a living mech to develop willpower as well?"

Ves blinked.

He never thought about that. Although Jannzi's latest suggestion sounded ridiculous, it might be possible to make it happen!

Still, the difficulty was not small. This idea sounded so counterintuitive that he was tempted to dismiss it right away!

Yet... Ves couldn't completely get rid of it. Perhaps it was not possible to make it happen through conventional means, but what if he took advantage of the Blood Pact to transfer a part of Jannzi's strength to the Bastion? Would that work?

The idea sounded interesting enough for Ves to investigate further!