The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

Though Ves occasionally paid attention to Joshua, he never really talked to the kid very often. A single one-on-one exchange therefore accomplished considerably more than he initially thought.

Joshua was like a boat that had gone lost in an endless ocean. Though the boat was clearly capable of traveling somewhere, it lacked a direction.

Now that Ves provided Joshua with a more concrete goal and destination to work towards, the expert candidate gained a strong motivation to grow stronger.

As Joshua's force of will evolved and grew a little more solid, Ves remained observant throughout the process.

This was not the first time he studied an expert candidate. He had a decent idea of what Joshua needed to do to catch up to the other expert candidates in the clan. As for taking his first true step to godhood, that was an opportunity that he needed to obtain by himself.

What Ves found curious was the potential cooperation and synergy he could achieve with a mech pilot who shared his domain.

Even now, whenever Ves reached out with his Spirituality, he always felt he could 'link up' with Joshua's force of will.

Naturally, he wasn't reckless enough to actually do so. Neural linking between two humans was exceedingly dangerous, and it shouldn't be too different if it happened over a spiritual link!

What Ves began to think about instead was trying to take advantage of this condition in a mech designed exclusively for Joshua.

If the expert candidate ever succeeded in taking the next step and advanced to expert pilot, then he needed a suitable expert mech to exercise the full range of his newly-acquired resonance abilities.

While Seniors and Masters were usually the ones to design expert mechs, Ves did not wish to pass off this responsibility to anyone else! There was no way he would rely on an external Senior to help him design an expert mech either.

No matter what, Ves had his own pride, and he believed that it shouldn't be impossible for him to design an expert mech at this stage!

Even if his work didn't measure up to the expert mechs designed by actual Seniors, he could always design a better expert mech next time!

Once Ves departed from the Redfeather and returned to the Scarlet Rose, he continued to speculate on the abilities he could bestow onto an expert mech.

Adding resonance abilities was a must. From what Joshua had briefly demonstrated back in the design duel, his domain allowed him to rejuvenate the parts of his mech.

On the surface, this made it seem as if he was made to pilot defensive mechs.

"It shouldn't be that simple." Ves shook his head.

Certainly, integrating resonating exotics that enabled a mech to repair itself should likely synergize extremely well with Joshua's resonance abilities. Ves did not dare to think how much damage such a zombie mech could repair in mid-battle!

However, aside from this application, it was rather difficult for Ves to imagine what else Joshua could do. One of the defining traits of a life domain was how both of them were able to communicate with other entities.

This meant that Joshua might be able to achieve a greater level of cooperation with design spirits than usual!

Ves could scarcely fathom what that meant for Joshua's future expert mech. Would he be able to meld with certain design spirits and be able to channel some of their distinctive powers?

That sounded incredibly wild, but Ves felt that it might not be as ludicrous as it sounded!

"Expert mechs are moving miracles. What they do defy common sense."

So far, Ves knew too little about the development of expert mechs.

If he really wanted to, he could ask Gloriana to explain what made expert mechs different. He was also pretty sure he could ask some favors from his allies and acquaintances.

So far, Ves did not feel inclined to pursue something that wouldn't be relevant for some time. He needed to focus his attention on his current projects.

When Ves resumed his work on his major projects, he continued to work together with Gloriana over the galactic net.

Even when they openly talked about controversial subjects such as proto-gods and the divine nature of mechs, Ves did not avoid them, but casually worked normally as if they were no big deal.

He knew that the Darkbreak module he was using probably gave Master Willix and anyone else in the MTA direct access to their transmissions.

There was no way to avoid these onlookers. If he refused to use the Darkbreak module and instead used a conventional quantum entanglement node, then the CFA and many other parties would listen in as well!

Ves felt pretty helpless at his inability to keep his remote conversations and collaborations with Gloriana private. He might as well accept this reality and use it as an opportunity to promote the illusion that he was a crank!

Therefore, instead of rejecting Gloriana's distinctive terminology, Ves embraced it. Design spirit became proto-god. Spiritual foundation became divine nature. Spiritual attributes became divine authorities.

Certainly, Ves believed that Master Willix must be probably learning quite a bit about his methods and approaches to mech design.

He was confident that it wasn't so easy to follow in his footsteps, though. Besides, if the MTA saw that both Ves and Gloriana sounded as if they were so delusional about their warped beliefs that they developed a consistent and systematic framework for creating gods, then that only strengthened his cover story!

One day, the pair discussed how to shape the Valkyrie Redeemer's personality.

"The Superior Mother, your mother, is a must." Gloriana stated with her hands placed on her hips.

"Miaow."

Clixie just happened to be projected as well. She looked confused as she failed to spot Lucky. Was he avoiding her or something?

Even though Ves felt annoyed that Gloriana kept equating the Superior Mother to his actual mother in a literal fashion, he let it slide. Trying to correct her would only make him appear more sane, which was exactly what he didn't want to do in front of the MTA.

"I was thinking of adopting a more youthful and aggressive expression of the Superior Mother." He told her. "The Valkyrie Redeemer is a marauder mech that is strong in both speed and offense. Those are traits that fit much better with maidens rather than matrons."

"That's not necessarily the case, Ves. Mothers can be very angry and very aggressive when roused."

"That's true, but that is something that fits more closely to the Blessed Squire, where the Superior Mother is watching over the male mech pilots. In the case of our current project, the female mech pilots of the Valkyrie Redeemer do not need to fight as if their mothers are leaning over their shoulders. They need to have the room to run wild and follow their impulses."

"Hmm.. maybe you are onto something. Is it even possible to express the Supreme in such a fashion? It sounds as if you are forcing your mother to do something she might not like."

"What woman doesn't dream of becoming younger?" Ves boldly grinned.

His fiance chuckled. "You have a point. If you are confident you can make your mother younger, then by all means, go for it. I wonder what she was like when she was younger. What kind of life did she live to birth a wonderful lover like you? She must have led an exciting life!"

Ves coughed. "Enough about my mother. Let's continue with the design of the Valkyrie Redeemer."

It was not a good idea to talk about his mother's personal life over a compromised channel! If the MTA ever found out that Cynthia Larkinson wasn't as dead as the record stated, then he would definitely be in trouble!

Just as with the design of the Cat's Paw, the pair began to look at the weapon loadout first. The armaments of a mech often defined its overall fighting style.

They already decided to design a medium marauder mech. The mech had to be tougher than light mechs because it was expected to make direct assaults in smaller units.

Ves fully envisioned the Valkyrie Redeemer as a mech that flew over the periphery of a battlefield. Rather than join the pitched battles at the front, the mech should instead be looking for its own opportunities to finish off an isolated opponent or sabotage critical infrastructure.

"I'm not quite certain about the pulse submachine gun that we initially paired with this mech design." Gloriana frowned. "It's lightweight, consumes a modest amount of energy and doesn't take up a lot of capacity. It's just…"

"Individually, pulse submachine guns are rather weak." Ves finished for her. "I'm aware of that, but pairing a marauder mech with a full-sized rifle will basically turn it into a hero mech, which is quite difficult to pull off and pilot."

The inherent lack of range and accuracy at longer distances meant that the pulse submachine gun was only effective at closer ranges.

Normally, this sounded like a shortcoming, but it was actually a hidden boon in this case. Designing a mech to handle full-sized rifles while ensuring a high degree of accuracy and precision was very difficult.

Rather than waste much capacity in order to add a long-ranged solution to the Valkyrie Redeemer, Ves instead preferred to minimize his investment in this area and stick to a short-ranged weapon.

The pulse submachine gun undeniably imposed much less demands. The Valkyrie Redeemer only had to fly close enough to a target before peperring it with a large volley of pulsed particles.

"We need to keep the ranged option for the Valkyrie Redeemer modest because we have to dedicate a lot of capacity to strengthen its most powerful mode of attack.

The Valkyrie Redeemer also came equipped with a small shield and shortspear. This turned her into a discount version of a lancer mech as the mech was capable of charging any target on the ground!

Both Ves and Gloriana already possessed some experience with lancer mechs when they designed one of the Bright Warrior's configurations. They knew the most important aspect about facilitating charge attacks was to ensure the attacking mech survived the impact!

Gloriana did not express much concern. "You don't need to be concerned about finding the right materials and components that excel at absorbing shocks and impacts. The licenses provided by DIVA already cover this area. I even picked some of them out. They're all fantastic in what they do and they're already used in existing Hexer lancer mechs."

"I'll leave the decision up to you, then. Make sure to keep expenses in mind. Our budget can only accommodate some goodies."

Ves envisioned the Valkyrie Redeemer as a mythical valkyrie that offered redemption by delivering death. Right now, without the triggered ability that he intended to add to its spiritual makeup, the marauder mech did not quite live up to its potential.

Just like with some of his other mech designs, he felt as if the Valkyrie Redeemer missed something special. Ves felt the urge to add something more to the design, though he had no idea what he could fit in considering most of its capacity was already taken up by its existing weapon loadout.

"Hmmm. Let's get back to this topic later." Gloriana suggested. "Since we are working on several projects at the same time, we don't have to focus too much on a single issue. We can think over it slowly while we work on other projects."

The Valkyrie Redeemer would likely be the second commissioned mech design that the pair intended to deliver to DIVA.

As they both added more detail to its draft design, the vibrancy of the mech already became apparent! To Ves, it seemed as if the mech contradicted the phase of death, but Ves was in no mood to design a creepy, skeletal mech.

There was no way that female Hexer mech pilots would pilot something that looked so ugly and abhorrent!