The Mech Touch

The Fey Fianna under the control of Commander Ikeon Powell gradually fought more proficiently.

The mercenary commander might not be exceptionally talented or clever, but the man had to possess enough skill in order to earn the respect of his subordinates.

As an experienced mercenary leader who piloted many different mechs over the course of his career, his ability to pick up new machines and quickly become proficient in their use was not weak.

The manual that the Larkinsons had given to him also contained a lot of helpful tips and thought exercises that could help mech pilots control multiple objects.

As projections of mechs continually appeared inside the vast central grounds of Phoca Arena, the sole Fey Fianna controlled by a new mech pilot organically displayed all of its basic capabilities.

A lot of mech pilots and other mech insiders gained a more intuitive grasp of the Fey Fianna's speed, maneuverability, accuracy and many other traits.

Seeing a mech in action granted them a much better idea of how the mech would fare in combat than seeing a lot of numbers on a spec sheet.

At a certain point, the projected mechs began to be replaced by battle bots. These machines were relatively cheap and disposable, but they exerted enough pressure onto the Fey Fianna that Commander Powell had to pay attention to defense.

Relying on the adaptive modular armor system had to be avoided as much as possible. It was not desirable to rely on hard armor to fend off attacks because it was a non-renewable resource.

The main defensive tool in this demonstration was the water hyper energy shield fey.

The single fey's energy shield was not as strong as a transphasic energy shield, but it did a good job at trying to close the gap.

Whenever the fey projected its energy shield in a bubble that was large enough to cover the main body, its entire surface glowed in blue.

At the same time, it produced an illusion that resembled multiple whirlpools that seemed to suck all of the energy out of incoming attacks.

Both laser beams and gauss rounds found themselves unable to wear down the energy shield as effectively as before.

Once a battle bot started to employ a hyper weapon the results drastically changed.

The battle bot armed with a laser rifle suddenly released a beam that was imbued with fire energy!

Boom!

A small explosion erupted when the fiery beam struck the water energy shield!

The collision between fire and water often produced explosive results, and this was no different.

However, the power of the laser beam could not overcome the power of the energy shield.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The firepower of the battle bot armed with a hyper weapon largely became suppressed by the water energy shield.

Even though the louder explosions looked more dramatic, the reality was that much of that power got wasted when it was directed elsewhere.

The water energy shield decisively held the advantage in this instance!

Ves occasionally narrated what was happening as the demonstration continued to unfold before everyone's eyes.

"Water energy and fire energy normally enjoy an antagonistic relationship. If everything is equal, then water usually holds an advantage, which means that it is the most suitable element to defend against energy attacks imbued with fire energy. However, the energy shield fey cannot keep this up forever. The incoming laser beam attacks will still deal damage even if they are unable to display their full power."

The Fey Fianna's other two living fey locked onto the threatening battle bot and sought to pummel it into pieces.

This was difficult as both sides did not remain stationary. The Fey Fianna and its accompanying fey were constantly moving around, which made it difficult to maintain an acceptable degree of accuracy.

The opposing battle bot did not enjoy much protection, but that made it lighter and more nimble.

It was a challenge for the two offensive fey to land their attacks, especially when the mech pilot in charge of them was completely new to attacking with the help of spurs!

However, enough time had passed for Commander Powell to understand the knack to utilizing them. Drone mechs existed long enough for mech pilots to develop a lot of standardized techniques and mental shortcuts that enabled them to improve their control of their difficult machines.

Ves had studied them as well. "Ah, I see that Commander Powell is utilizing two related control techniques at once. The manual that we have provided them has only given him a description of how to execute them, but the living mech he is piloting is actively helping him to perform these new and unfamiliar methods. This is one of the reasons why his control has improved so quickly."

The lack of proficiency at the start was quite clear and obvious to the mech pilots with drone mech experience. They had lived through this phase as well.

The difference was that it usually took weeks if not months for them to tame their spurs and make them move according to their will!

Even if those past struggles happened with more traditional drone mechs with a dozen spurs or more, it was still remarkable how Commander Powell was able to control four different fey without looking like a fool.

"The first control technique he is using is to imagine that his fey are limbs extending from his mech. Mech pilots often pull it off by visualizing their fey as tentacles. By imagining that the mech has 4 extra tentacle limbs extending out of its sides or back, it becomes easier to control the fey like they are extra hands. Of course, this mental model also comes with a number of downsides. The spurs have to stay relatively close to the main body, and they cannot make movements that would cause the extra limbs to break or perform illogical movements."

This was a tried-and-true control technique that every drone mech pilot started with. It reduced the complexity of controlling the spurs while also borrowing existing human neural pathways related to the control of limbs.

It was a lot easier to get started with this technique when the mech pilot hopped inside the cockpit of a humanoid mech that actually possessed such a limb structure.

Piloting a mech with five, six or eight arms enabled mech pilots to experience what it was like to control additional limbs that did not directly correspond to the human body.

Once they transferred to a drone mech, the gap between their past and current machines wasn't as big as before, making it much easier for the mech pilot to intuitively control spurs as if they were tentacles.

More proficient drone mech specialists usually abandoned this technique once they got enough practice under their belt. The true potential of spurs could only be unleashed if they were allowed to travel much further away from the main body or perform complicated maneuvers that could make actual tentacles get twisted into knots.

However, that was not an issue that most beginners had to worry about. The extra limb control technique was already good enough for most mech pilots.

"Aside from the extra limb control technique, do you see how synchronized the luminar crystal cannon fey and the gauss cannon fey have become? They have practically become twins with each other. They are always floating next to each other. Their guns are pointed at the exact same direction with minimal deviations in angle. They even fire their weapons at the same time despite the fact that the luminar crystal cannon can fire faster. This is usually known as the spurs-as-fingers technique or the fingering technique."

The spurs-as-fingers technique was an approach that encouraged the mech pilots to imagine the spurs as individual fingers attached to the same hand.

Doing this activated certain parts of a mech pilot's brain that was related to controlling the fingers of their own hands. This effectively reduced the burden of controlling multiple spurs as the mech pilot automatically 'grouped' them in the same hand.

This was an especially helpful control technique for drone mechs that carried many spurs.

It helped even more if the spurs were either identical to each other or possessed enough similarities that it did not matter too much.

This made it a mandatory technique for any mech pilot expected to master the Sparrow Storm!

No baseline human mech pilot could effectively control an entire mech as well as 16 spurs at once.

Without relying on augmentations, a mech pilot had to use shortcuts like these to make the process of controlling all of those spurs more manageable.

Naturally, more seasoned drone mech specialists eventually abandoned this technique as well.

The disadvantages of grouping lots of spurs to the same 'hand' were considerable. The lack of flexibility and the inability to maximize the use of every spur in a given moment restricted the mech pilots too much.

The prestige of piloting drone mechs without the use of these training wheels was considerable!

Only those who were able to control every spur as if they were individual fishes swimming around the main body were recognized as true drone mech specialists.

Their skill and lethality with a drone mech was on another level. They were highly desired among certain employers who recognized the benefits of using drone mechs. The highly specialized mech pilots were usually able to negotiate much higher salaries and other benefits due to their value.

In addition to that, drone mech specialists usually made for good battlefield commanders. Their ability to multitask and pay attention to many different moving elements at once could easily be applied to commanding entire mech units.

Once drone mechs started to age and decline from their peak, it was natural for them to switch to command mechs and start ordering around their subordinate mech units like they were spurs.

Ves did not think that would apply to the Fey Fianna. It was not a typical drone mech, and its target audience did not consist of mech pilots who were necessarily good at controlling many different pieces at once.

While other drone mechs forced mech pilots to adapt to their unique circumstances, the Fey Fianna instead took the initiative to accommodate its own mech pilots!

The demonstration that continued to unfold before him made that very clear.

With the help of the extra limb control technique and the spurs-as-fingers technique, Commander Powell exerted enough control over his offensive fey to aim and fire their modest arsenal as if they were guns on a weapon turret!

Each time the luminar crystal cannon fey and the gauss cannon fey fired their respective weapons, their output either missed or struck their targets in almost perfect synchronicity!

Most salvos missed as it was not easy for spurs to land hits against a maneuverable battle bot, but Powell was constantly improving his proficiency in his techniques.

Bang!

The battle bot eventually got struck enough times for it to malfunction and collapse to the arena floor!

More threatening battle bots emerged. Each of them were equipped with basic hyper weapons that produced different reactions when they struck the water energy shield depending on their E energy attributes.

The additional battle bots stressed the defenses of the Fey Fianna while at the same forcing it to quickly eliminate the machines by improving its hit rate.

Commander Powell endured a lot more stress than before, but he grit his teeth and persisted in this challenge!

This demonstration did not only showcase the excellent features of the Fey Fianna, but also revealed how such a mech would fare in the hands of a capable mech pilot that had yet to pilot a drone mech than before.

If such a pilot was already capable of reaching this level of combat effectiveness, then how much better would a true drone mech specialist perform under the same circumstances?

The lower limit of the Fey Fianna became quite clear after this display.

However, the true value of the Fey Fianna still remained unclear so long as its upper limit had yet to be shown!