The Mech Touch

Ves threw himself into this side project with great interest.

He would devise a more formal mech design project around the concept of a cultivator mech in the future, but for now he was content with setting up a small experiment.

The mech designer first wanted to take a good look at the 'formation anchors' that were vital to deploying a spell array. He had never gotten in touch with them before so he was curious to see what they were like. He already formed a lot of suspicions on how they worked.

"They're pretty big" Ves commented as a handful of mechs brought them to the private workshop inside the Spirit of Bentheim,

"They have to be." Commander Melkor said. "Many of the ancient qi formations that the Red Collective managed to recover are mostly useful at the infantry scale. Their effects typically encompass a radius of hundreds of meters or maybe several kilometers. The formation anchors are also designed to be fairly small and portable. They often come in the form of small flags or pieces of rock and metal that you can easily stuff in a rucksack or whatever."

"That makes sense. A formation master has to pull them out and be able to deploy them in the field without needing lots of helpers or equipment." Ves nodded.

"There are larger versions of spell arrays. They were originally designed to provide defenses to strongholds and cities. The formation anchors are much larger and more complex, but they are able to attract much more E energy and shape them into much larger protective barriers. In fact, most of them aren't able to sustain their exaggerated effects by absorbing E energy radiation alone. Their energy demands have to be supplemented by other sources of E energy. There are references to special stones or crystals that are highly concentrated with E energy that were commonly used at the time."

"I take it that these city-grade formation anchors have formed the basis for the modern formation anchors like the one you have used."

Melkor nodded. "That is correct. They are different in multiple different ways, but they share the same root. This is because only the formation anchors that work at the scale of a city are strong enough to be useful in this age of warfare. Even then, they are still not quite up to strength in my opinion. Spell arrays are largely useless in the Upper Zones because they are too fragile. The overwhelming firepower of alien warships can break every spell array by relying on brute force alone."

If Melkor dared to use the same confinement spell array on a phase lord or a couple of powerful alien warships, then it would be no different to trying to cover a person up with a large paper bag. The individual could easily tear apart the bag in order to get rid of its effects!

Ves frowned. "When I watched the battle footage, I didn't see any sign that you needed

To rely on another source of E energy in order to power the spell array. How is it able to function so well?"

"Just because ancient cultivators used to possess a rich tradition in qi formations doesn't mean they did everything perfectly." Melkor calmly replied. "According to the Red Collective, the design and fabrication of most spell arrays left much to be desired. The formation anchors had to be handmade by the formation master and possibly his apprentices and assistants. They worked over most materials by hand. Even if their perception, precision and craftsmanship has received massive improvements due to their growing cultivation, how can they beat the precision, consistency and sophistication of modern superfabs, materializers and other production tech?"

"That makes sense." Ves nodded as he possessed a much better understanding of how modern fabrication technology can make a great difference on the quality of the output. "Our craftsmanship is much better. The materials are also a lot better as well. Our civilization's grasp in metallurgy and materials science is much stronger. Combined with using advanced processing machines to produce hyper alloys that are otherwise impossible to produce through other ways, the formation anchors that we can produce in the modern day are much better than the ones used in the distant past. To put it in simpler terms, the efficiency of modern manufactured formation anchors is probably much higher than what people made in the distant past."

The tools used to extract ores, refine minerals and shape them into formation anchors were all worse. Even if cultivators could use special abilities to mitigate these shortcomings, there had to be limits to what they could do to improve the quality and consistency of their works.

"The only reason why our spell arrays aren't stronger at the moment is because our theory and our ability to design more sophisticated qi formations is not as good. Melkor added. "This will improve over time as formation masters figure out more stuff. Once they do, they can use the same set of high-grade hyper materials to build the formation anchors of much more powerful spell arrays."

This would naturally improve over time. Ves could not do much about it. As he examined the formation anchors by remote, he winced when he looked at the very visible cracks and other signs of damage.

"It is quite impressive that the spell array can still work despite the anchors being damaged to this degree. How are they supposed to be repaired?"

"I don't know." Melkor shrugged. "I chose to specialize in deploying and controlling spell arrays. I completely skipped out on all of the lessons related to designing the spell arrays and producing the necessary formation anchors. These are completely different subjects that I don't necessarily need to know in order to do my job."

Ves wondered whether it was possible to extend the lifespan of these damaged formation anchors merely by restoring their physical damage.

It sounded a bit too simple for it to be true.

If he had more time, Ves would have loved to contact the formation masters of the Red Collective and hear their advice on how to restore the damaged formation anchors as

Best as possible.

Every hour counted. Ves decided not to waste his time on this endeavor and focus on attaining more immediate results.

"Forget it. We'll just use them as is. Right now, the simplest way to turn them into living fey that you can control with a greater degree of control is to build a protective shell around them and slap thrusters onto the exterior. This should allow you to control and move all 25 of them by yourself."

Melkor frowned when he heard that. He looked rather underwhelmed by the proposal.

"Are you sure that the results will be worth it, Ves? I mean, I already managed to move the formation anchors to their places by using other mechs as porters. Our mech forces are not so small that we cannot afford to assign 25 machines for this assignment." Ves shook his head. "You are not thinking big enough. There is a huge difference between moving the formation anchors with mechs controlled by other people and letting them move directly under your direction by converting them into fey. With the latter, you are able to form a much closer bond with them through the neural interface of your Fey Fianna. Your living mech and its many subordinate spirits will effectively serve as a much better bridge to them than your dinky little disk-shaped control ℟άŊỗ฿Е𐌔

Artifact."

That... may actually be possible!

Melkor had never thought about it before, but if Ves could really make this happen, then his ability to control the formation anchors would massively improve!

That in turn would massively boost his ability to control the active spell array!

"I never thought about that. I am beginning to understand much better why you have become so good at inventing new stuff. The idea you proposed sounds really simple and logical in hindsight, but formation masters such as myself never thought about it because we never bothered to consider how living mechs can be combined with spell

Arrays."

Ves chuckled in response. "I am not arrogant enough to claim that only I can come up with such an idea. A clever mech designer or scientist should be able to connect the dots and propose a similar concept sooner or later. The difference is that there is still a massive gap between a formation anchor that has been turned into a regular spur and one that is turned into a living fey. The latter makes it so that the formation anchors possess life. I wonder if that also means that you can infuse life into spell arrays. What would it be like if they came to life and started to take actions by themselves? Can qi formations even be alive in the first place?"

All of these ideas and speculations sounded way too crazy for Melkor!

He had no interest in finding the answers to all of these convoluted and difficult

Questions. He just wanted to pilot a good mech that would hopefully help him deploy his spell array a lot better than last time.

"Will the attempt to turn the formation anchors into fey even work?" Melkor skeptically asked. "When I procured the set from the Red Collective, one of their people warned me that it is best not to bring them close to other hyper materials. The formation anchors contain a large amount of hyper materials and need to be able to interact with E energy radiation without any nearby disturbances."

That was a serious warning and one that Ves needed to think through.

"I think... that this may be sound advice. He conceded. "If I had more time, I could have performed experiments on how the proximity of other hyper materials may affect the functioning of the hyper totems. I don't believe that they will malfunction or produce glitches just because of this reason. Just to be safe, I will design the fey shell of a formation anchor so that it is only made out of stable exotic materials. That should allow the flow of E energy radiation to remain unimpeded."

That would limit the performance of the new formation anchor fey. The silver lining was that it saved Ves a bit of work and effort.

"What about the living mech itself?" Melkor asked another important question. "The

Larkinson Edition of the Fey Fianna is a transphasic hyper mech after all. If you turn the formation anchors into living fey, some of the Fey Fianna's stuff will get passed on to the

New fey. Wouldn't that comprise a disturbance in itself?"

"Yes... and no."

"You need to clarify that, Ves."

"I know what the formation masters are worried about when they issued that warning.

The thing is that living fey works differently. If my theories are correct, turning the formation anchors into fey will not add a disruptive variable to the total package. It will instead fill up a gap that was missing all this time."

"What are my formation anchors missing?"

"Artifact spirits, or rather just one artifact spirit that is spread over multiple different

Anchors. If this is the case, then what I am about to do will not cause the spell array to malfunction or collapse entirely, but it will instead enhance them to a higher level! If their quality and conditions were much better, then I suspect that the end product may actually be powerful enough to trigger a lightning tribulation event!"

That risk still existed, but Ves did not think the heavens would be picky enough to

Respond to his upcoming work. The spell anchors were in terrible condition and the design of the confinement spell array was too basic and rudimentary,

Ves was very interested to see what would happen if all of the formation anchors obtained their own 'artifact spirits'. This may be enough to turn them into pseudo-high-level artifacts!

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