The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

The importance of this fabrication run was too great.

As a quasi-first-class expert space knight, the Dullahan Project held great meaning to the mech designers who worked on it. It also had an outsized impact on the Larkinson Clan as a whole.

Ves, Gloriana and everyone else derived great benefits from gaining access to the Superpublished version of the already sophisticated mech design.

Although each of them possessed enough smarts to quickly refamiliarize themselves with the upgraded mech design, they were far from mastering all of the changes.

By moving away from pure theory, they could hasten their comprehension of all of the nuances of the new mech design by working with their hands.

They could learn all kinds of details that were difficult to parse if they continued to look at the design schematics all of the time!

As such, fabricating the Dullahan Project not only represented an opportunity to add a powerful machine to the Larkinson Army's mech roster, but also served as a unique and valuable learning opportunity to the relevant mech designers!

Once they completed this fabrication run, they would gain a lot more insights and comprehension at once. This would subsequently help them master and internalize all of the improvements to their own design solutions!

This was why every mech designer entered the workshop with much greater enthusiasm than before!

Ves swept his gaze across the workshop. While Gloriana, Ketis and Sara conducting their own pre-work rituals, Master Benedict Cortez carefully inspected a huge machine that was just as big as the AP-VEX Superfab.

In order to save time and increase the efficiency of this fabrication run, the former Skull Architect agreed to transfer over his own superfab!

It went without saying that Master Benedict procured a high-quality first-class superfab through his own efforts.

The amount of MTA merits that the Cross Clan had at its disposal was not small, and it was practically mandatory for a Master Mech Designer of his status to own a complete design lab and workshop of this caliber.

Ves did not possess a great familiarity of the specific model procured by Master Benedict, but it didn't matter as the older mech designer would be the only one to manipulate it in the following days.

"Are you ready to get started?" Ves asked.

Master Benedict nodded. "I am. It shall be interesting to say the least. Out of all of the collaborative projects that I have taken part of, the ones involving you and your fellow Larkinsons are by far the most interesting. The design networks that you and your wife are able to establish are game changers, do you know that?"

"Hmm? Are you interested in gaining this ability for yourself?"

"Can you?"

Ves shook his head. "No. I will be honest to you. I need special raw materials in order to derive powerful effects. Ones that can produce design networks don't come by often to say the least. I only ever obtained a single sample, and it is all used up. Besides, even if I have a spare sample available, I won't be able to bestow it to you. The most I can do is to imbue it into a companion spirit of one of your students or subordinates."

Ever since Ves decided to hand out companion spirits and companion spirit seeds to a wider group of people, he primarily rewarded the Larkinsons and the Glory Seekers.

He did not yet develop enough friendship and affection to offer this invaluable service to the latest two partners of the Golden Skull Alliance.

As for the Crossers, Patriarch Reginald Cross' defection to the 77th Warborn Mech Division caused Ves to become a lot less generous towards them. They needed to earn back his trust or trade a lot of concessions before he was willing to give them a boon.

The only member of the Cross Clan that he was willing to give a companion spirit for free was Master Benedict Cortez. The older mech designer had helped Ves a lot, and years of cooperation and collaborations had caused them to treat each other as genuine friends.

They both came from the Komodo Star Sector and possessed a lot of shared history. They had both been tempered by adversity and managed to rise from it. Their design philosophies complimented each other well and their exchanges often enabled them to gain a new and interesting perspective on familiar subjects.

The gap between age, experience, generation and so on no longer mattered as much to them. Master Benedict was not stingy about admitting that Ves and his fellow Larkinsons had done much to enable his critical breakthrough.

It also helped that they firmly recognized that they were more alike than most people realized. This allowed them to understand each other's desires and ambitions on a deeper level. They trusted each other with certain secrets that they would never share with other friends and colleagues.

After years of getting along like this, it should not be a great surprise for Ves to offer his unique service to Master Benedict.

It was a pity that his attempt of giving his friend a great gift failed!

No matter how hard Blinky tried to 'operate' on Master Benedict's blazingly strong spirituality, the poor companion spirit failed to create any openings with his bites!

Any attempt to follow the steps needed to make a companion spirit failed due to the enormous power difference between Ves and Master Benedict!

After numerous failed attempts, Ves and Benedict explored what happened and eventually came to a depressing conclusion.

"You're too weak, Ves."

It was a dream for a Journeyman, even one as strong as him, to rearrange the spiritualities of Master Mech Designers and other transcendence at this level!

There was a huge difference between Masters and anyone below this rank. Any mech designer who did the impossible and realized their designed philosophies were among the most brilliant and successful individuals of human society!

Their mental strength was already strong and tenacious because of that alone, but after undergoing a profound transformation that completely evolved their spiritualities to the point where they acquired god-like traits, they became strong enough to change an entire galaxy if not more!

"I think it is even more impossible for you to perform the same operation on an ace pilot." Master Benedict Cortez theorized. "The good news is that Saints are already strong enough that they do not require companion spirits to exert their power in various ways. Reginald is already a beast on the battlefield regardless of whether he can summon an additional part of himself."

"I'm not too sure about that." Ves said, though he declined to elaborate.

He couldn't very well say that one of the reasons why the Destroyer of Worlds had gradually grown to become the most destructive god pilot of humanity was because Emma had kept up with her growth and become formidable in her own right!

Fortunately for Ves, this was just a temporary limitation.

"I should be able to succeed once Blinky and I become a lot stronger."

That would take a long time, though. Ves would probably have to advance to the rank of Master Mech Designer himself before he could reduce the power gap to the extent where he could make a move.

Until then, Master Benedict would have to make do without this particular benefit.

It was good that the older mech designer himself did not really mind it if he missed out on the party. He had experienced a lot of ups and downs throughout his career and managed to realize his design philosophy in the end. What more could he ask for? He certainly hadn't degenerated to the point where he had to beg for another handout from a Journeyman in order to remain productive!

"So how is your superfab?" Ves asked as he wanted to make sure that there were no problems on Benedict's end.

"All of its parameters are within acceptable levels." The Master Mech Designer responded. "No issues have occurred during the transportation and installation processes of my superfab. So long as you can ensure that your complex can supply enough energy to this hungry machine, it won't let us down."

"You don't have to worry about that. The Cat Nest has enough reactors on hand, and we can always divert additional power from other activities if necessary."

Once Ves confirmed that nothing was wrong on this end, he waited for a few more minutes before calling over the people who mattered.

The mech designers along with Venerable Jannzi all gathered in front of the Larkinson Patriarch.

Ves had already conjured up a timetable.

"Alright. I am sure you have already memorized your own schedules, so I won't need to go into further detail. The Dullahan Project is a fairly large and massive expert mech. It may not be as heavy as the old Shield of Samar anymore, but the fact that its material composition is primarily made up of transphasic and non-transphasic first-class materials makes it a lot harder to fabricate its parts, especially if we want to attain a high standard of quality."

This expert mech design project was a watershed for the Larkinson Clan and its mech designers.

The Dullahan Project was the first of many quasi-first-class mechs that had been systematically designed!

The Larkinson Clan would soon adopt such mechs on a much wider scale, but the first step was the most important one. The Dullahan Project set the pattern of a new wave and generation of Larkinson mechs.

Much could go wrong in the following days. Ves and the others might have spent a bit of time on practicing with first-class materials in various side projects and smaller rehearsal sessions, they never worked with such a great quantity of high-end materials at once!

The amount of variables that the mech designers had to take into account while processing these materials was great. If they overlooked a single crucial detail, they might botch their current task and waste a decent quantity of expensive materials!

Ves made sure to order enough spare materials to account for this eventuality.

Even if he went overboard and ordered enough raw materials to fabricate the Dullahan Project twice, it was fine. Whatever was left wouldn't go to waste. The Larkinson Clan could simply put them back into storage and use them up in the future whenever the expert mech needed to be repaired.

Once Ves made sure that everyone agreed with the division of work assignments, he clapped one last time.

"If everything goes right, we should be able to complete the Dullahan Project in a week. The Dullahan Project has more in common with the original version of the Mars than any of our previous Larkinson expert mechs, so I don't think we can complete it any sooner despite the fact that we have two impressive superfabs at our disposal. Anyway, just like before, Blinky and Alexandria will rotate their duties during the entire production process."

There were four mech designers with companion spirits among the ones gathered in this workshop. Only two of them were able to form the crucial design networks.

Sharpie helped a lot in combat and in a limited variety of design processes, but she could not help that much outside of helping Ketis forge a more remarkable mech sword for the Dullahan Project.

Sara Voiken recently obtained her own companion spirit, but the new addition wouldn't be able to help that much either.

This caused Ves to frown for a moment. Design networks were far too useful to mech designers. It became a bit cumbersome to rely on Blinky and Alexandria all of the time.

He needed to find a way to reverse engineer design networks and come up with a method to reproduce them on a systematic basis without relying on special ingredients!

After all, it was not as if he could hunt down Master Toqueman Huron's apprentices for the sole purpose of harvesting their design seeds. He had already gone far enough by killing Lady Aisling Curver!

"Any further questions? No? Then let us begin!"

The all-important fabrication run had finally begun!