The Mech Touch

Out of the three high-ranking mech design projects currently in development, Ves and Gloriana both had their favorites.

The Amaranto Mark III Project, Riot Mark III Project and the Minerva Mark II Project all had their highlights that pushed the boundaries of mech design to a new frontier.

The Amaranto Mark III Project offered unparalleled long-range striking capability.

The Riot Mark III Project reveled in chaos and unpredictability.

The Minerva Mark II promised to become a conductor of large-scale battles.

The two upcoming expert mechs and single ace mech all possessed their own unique flavor and personality that made them utterly different from other high-ranking mechs. No one would be able to mistake them from the works of other mech designers.

While Ves injected his love and expectations in each of the mech design projects, he looked forward to realizing one specific living mech in particular.

Selecting a favorite was difficult for Ves.

Even though the Minerva Mark II was supposed to become a fully-fledged ace mech, he did not find it too attractive on an emotional level. The ace command mech possessed strong features and promised to amplify Saint Commander Casella Ingvar's impressive Command Field, but it seemed rather boring in other aspects.

Perhaps it was because the Minerva Mark II mainly amplified Casella's existing capabilities, and did not actually introduce any new and revolutionary abilities.

This was a shortcoming that Ves needed to address by developing an Ultimate Module that could complement her combat approach.

He had fallen behind in this aspect. Ves needed to make progress in this assignment quickly if he wanted to avoid getting on his wife's bad side.

Anyway, compared to the relatively bland Minerva Mark II, Ves felt a much stronger affinity for the Amaranto Mark III the Riot Mark III.

The Amaranto was his first true 'extreme' mech, and she had become the first masterwork among the high-ranking mechs he designed from the ground up. Her firepower had saved many Larkinsons as well as living mechs from death, and she could always be counted upon to land the right shot at the right time. She held a special place in Ves' heart, and would have been more perfect if she was piloted by a dedicated Larkinson mech pilot.

The Riot was not an expert mech that Ves especially loved from the beginning, but he had conquered his heart over time. He did not particularly like the pilot of the expert spearman mech, but the Riot possessed a strong sense of grit and resilience that allowed the machine to stand the test of time. The living mech had grown stronger and more exceptional with each passing year.

The two made for a strong contrast.

The Amaranto had always been one of his highly-regarded works from the beginning, and it had maintained its place even as newer mechs attempted to steal the spotlight.

The Riot was a scrappy expert mech that Ves looked down upon in the beginning, but slowly earned his appreciation through hard work and struggle.

It was agonizing for Ves to pick a favorite between the two living mechs.

While Ves always ranked the Everchanger and the Devil Tiger as his most favorite works, the Amaranto and the Riot had both made compelling cases on why they have earned a place just below.

After a few minutes of mental struggle, Ves ultimately made his choice.

"They are both good mechs, but the Amaranto is just a little more remarkable."

The Amaranto Mark III promised to be a gamechanger, especially if Venerable Stark was able to advance to the rank of ace pilot in the near future.

Even if Davia Stark became a newly promoted junior ace pilot, her fantastic new machine should definitely grant her enough firepower to threaten lesser phase lords from a comfortable distance!

That did not necessarily mean that the Riot Mark III was inferior. Venerable Rosa Orfan still had room for growth, and so did her battle partner.

As long as they continued to temper themselves during the Red War, they may be able to undergo enough sublimations to reinvent themselves. They were like diamonds in the rough that needed to be cut enough times to become dazzling jewels!

Ves let out a sigh.

He missed this. He missed the wonder and excitement that accompanied every high-ranking mech design project.

He had spent too much time on mass production models as of late.

There was nothing wrong with them, but the reality of designing mechs destined for mass production meant that Ves had to make a lot of compromises during the design process.

Designing a high-ranking mech was like realizing a dream.

Designing a mass production mech was more akin to setting up a factory.

Both kinds of mechs presented Ves with interesting challenges, but he would never remain satisfied with working on one of them for a long time.

He couldn't be like Gloriana who completely eschewed mass production models in favor of dedicating all of her design time to high-ranking mech design projects. He would eventually grow bored and frustrated at the lack of connection to the greater community.

He also couldn't remain committed to designing mass production mechs despite the fact that he was directly able to serve a lot more customers this way. The limitations of budget and other practicalities prevented him from implementing all sorts of amazing high-end technologies.

As Ves thought about the current state of the Amaranto Mark III Project, he had plenty of reasons to feel amazed at all of the technological innovations and enhancements in the works.

The differences between the Amaranto Mark II and the Mark III had become so great that Venerable Davia Stark would definitely become at least twice as effective as before regardless of any breakthroughs!

After Ves sorted out his thoughts and conducted a little research, he called a meeting with both Gloriana and Harry Kaikkonen.

Both mech designers already knew why they had called over, though Gloriana looked a little annoyed that he summoned her as if she was a servant.

Gloriana immediately crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "What do you want to talk about this time, Ves? I was in the middle of a design session, you know."

"I wanted to talk about the current direction of the Amaranto Mark III Project." Ves stated as he gestured to the newcomers to sit down. "I haven't been able to devote my full attention to this project and all of the other ones that you have been working on in the past half year. The Evolution Witch herself insisted that I devote as much of my attention to rushing the Swarm Project to completion as possible. You should be able to guess the reasons why. Now that I have completed my obligation, I can finally give the Amaranto Mark III Project the attention it deserves from me. I intend to make up for lost time."

His wife did not look all that happy after hearing his explanation.

"We only recently talked about setting up two new Carmine mech design projects, remember? These projects require your attention as well. Do you have enough time to complete your assignments for the high-ranking mech design projects?"

"It won't be a problem, Gloriana." Ves confidently replied. "I will remain involved in the projects, but since I won't be leading them, it will be up to Harry and Ketis to do the heavy lifting. I am just there to provide support related to living mechs and the Carmine System. Is that doable for you, Harry?"

The only Journeyman Mech Designer in the office nodded, though he did not convey as much confidence as before.

"I shall do my best to meet both of your expectations. I may be lacking in experience, but I believe I shall not lead the Carmine mech design project that I am responsible for astray under your guidance."

"Good. In any case, I did not call you over here in order to talk about the Carmine mech design projects. I want to share my own ideas about the Amaranto Mark III Project now that I have caught up with the latest developments."

"Do you approve of Harry's work?" Gloriana asked as if she was a proud parent showing off her pupil.

Ves smiled back. "I do. I am fine with letting him take charge of the Carmine rifleman mech design project, and I am also okay with letting him design the updated version of the Instrument of Vengeance. I do recall that I promised to turn the main weapons of the Amaranto Mark III into Ultimate Modules. I have fleshed out my plans with regards to these two weapons."

"I have not forgotten. I was hoping that you would make progress in this task now that you have returned." Gloriana responded. "You distinctly promised to collaborate with the Red Fleet in order to integrate that strange alloy called EE-343F-00334R into the Instrument of Doom. Have you made progress on this front?"

"Uh, not yet, but my relationship with the RF has warmed up during my most recent business trip. I do not expect to encounter a lot of barriers if I request their technical support in my attempt to redesign the Instrument of Doom. The weapon pretty much behaves like a small warship-grade cannon already, so the fleeters should be able to offer plenty of relevant advice."

"I will leave this completely up to you, Ves. It will be your fault if you fail to deliver the necessary results in time. The Amaranto Mark II currently relies more on the Instrument of Doom than the Instrument of Vengeance due to the nature of the enemies we are encountering as of late."

The Instrument of Vengeance was a weapon that possessed quite a lot of power, but mainly stood out in terms of accuracy and finesse. It was best employed against tricky or fast-moving opponents whose weak points were hard to strike.

The Instrument of Doom was a weapon that personified brute force. It possessed both firepower and penetration power in spades, but was a lot bulkier and clumsier to use in the field. That was generally not a problem if the Amaranto mainly exchanged firepower with enemy warships.

"The Instrument of Vengeance is currently underutilized, but I do not intend to keep it that way." Ves presented his own vision for the weapon. "It is a weapon that excels at long-range sniping. We just need to make that more pronounced. You told me half a year ago that we can definitely make the weapon a lot more useful by making it more effective at ranges far beyond anyone's ability to strike."

Gloriana nodded. "I did tell you that. I suggested that we invest the power of Ylvaine into the Instrument of Vengeance. Have you been able to persuade him to lend his cooperation?"

"There is no need to ask the Great Prophet." Ves said with a grin. "If he can truly predict the future, then he should have already anticipated our request. He should have already agreed to anchor a piece of himself inside the Instrument of Vengeance and allow Venerable Davia Stark to borrow his foresight in combat. What matters is that we design the Instrument of Vengeance in a way that can effectively enable it to inflict effective damage at a range of several light-seconds away."

That was easier said than done!

To laymen, a light-second sounded like a measurement of time, but it was actually a measurement of distance.

A light-second was simply the amount of distance that light could traverse in vacuum!

That was currently 300,000 kilometers per second, which already represented a ridiculous distance.

There were far too many variables that prevented conventional weapon systems from effectively damaging targets at that distance.

Ylvaine was able to control one of the variables, thereby turning an insurmountable problem into a non-issue.

That did not mean that the other problems could be dealt with so easily.

One of the main reasons why directed energy weapons tended to become ineffective at extreme ranges was because their beam convergence was almost never completely perfect!

So long as the energy beams were even slightly convergent or divergent, they began to spread apart into an enormous cone after traversing so many kilometers!

What the Amaranto needed was an Instrument of Vengeance whose focusing crystals were so perfect that they were able to produce completely parallel energy beams.

This was an extremely challenging technical problem!

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