The Mech Touch

As much as Ves wanted to spend his time on examining, repairing, modernizing and upgrading the Otalon Sprius, he simply could not justify this decision at this time.

He was far too busy and it would take far too much time to get a juggernaut that was over 60 years old battle ready again.

Ves actually estimated that if he was able to do all of that work to the best of his abilities, a fully modernized transphasic hyper juggernaut with additional flight capabilities may actually be of greater value than was apparent on the surface.

First, no matter whether it was controlled by a single pilot or multiple ones, it was enough of a mech that Ves could theoretically make it alive.

Attempting to breathe life into a juggernaut could yield a lot of benefits, but also had the potential to produce a huge man-made disaster.

Ves had not forgotten about the damage wrought by Uranus all of those years ago. The Otalon Sprius may be smaller, but it would also be much stronger due to the use of far better tech and materials! Experience exclusive tales on

Even so, the reason why he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the 350-meter tall juggernaut was because of the potential for Saint Commander Casella to empower it with her true resonance!

No matter whether she was able to Commandeer or Enfeoff it, so long as her true resonance was strong and flexible enough to empower the entire juggernaut frame, then the results would be astonishing!

"It would be similar to creating a small Carmine warship out of the blue." Ves guessed.

Since the Otalon Sprius was a juggernaut, it was much more flexible than a warship. It could take advantage of its much larger scale and much more extensive systems to resist phase lords directly.

This may be another way to further improve Saint Commander Casella Ingvar’s self-defense capabilities!

The full plan therefore consisted of designing a combination juggernaut that was primarily defensive in nature and pairing it up with the Otalon Sprius that possessed a strong offensive focus!

Having either of them would be a massive boon to the Saint Commander and by extension the Larkinson Clan.

"It’s too bad that my wife and I don’t have time to flesh out these juggernauts." Ves sighed in regret.

Not every Larkinson mech designer was as busy as Ves and Gloriana, though.

One of them made an unannounced visit to Ves’ personal lab a day later.

"I heard about your interest in bringing the Otalon Sprius back online." Alexa Streon said. "I would like to take charge of this effort."

Ves looked surprised as he turned around. "You? Why?"

"Because I want to make a more meaningful contribution to the clan." The woman said. "I have not done enough so far. While I have been supervising the design teams that are tasked with updating our existing mech lines to the Hyper Generation such as the Ferocious Piranha line and the Valkyrie line, this is not stimulating enough for me. I want to cut my teeth into a more technologically interesting pursuit. It has always been one of my dreams to design a juggernaut. Refurbishing the old Otalon Sprius that you have placed in storage is a good start."

He could clearly sense that she was being genuine in her desire to work on a juggernaut. There was just something about these enormous machines that attracted her fascination.

"If you heard about my intentions for the Otalon Sprius, then you should know that I want it to become a powerful weapon that will help the Saint Commander exert her power on the battlefield. It is not enough to restore the Otalon Sprius in a half-hearted way. I want it to be made entirely out of archemetal or another tech base that is equally as powerful."

"I have not mastered archetech."

"Then that is the end of the discussion."

"Yet."

"Wait, what?"

Alexa Streon smiled. "Do not underestimate my academic prowess. I am a former scion of the Streon Ancient Clan. I was born to become a mech designer. My genes and my augmentations are all optimized towards studying and applying all manner of sciences. My cranial implant is not as good as one empowered by a Mentalist Crystal that your wife currently enjoys, but it should not be much worse. I have already begun to study archetech starting from a few weeks ago. While I am admittedly far from gaining enough proficiency to be able to design a full archemech, I can make greater focus as long as I have a reason and a motivation to invest in my studies."

Her revelations took Ves by surprise. He hadn’t paid much attention to Alexa and what she was doing in her own time.

Now that he thought about it, he indeed neglected to assign any important responsibilities to her. He was too lazy to micromanage her schedule and he trusted her to decide for herself how she should spend her valuable time.

Alexa apparently thought it was a good idea for her to work on the massive Otalon Sprius!

"It would be… extremely helpful if you can study and master archetech to an extent." Ves said. "If you raise the priority on your studies, how soon can you reach a level where you can independently design an archemech?"

Alexa frowned. "Half a year perhaps. It is difficult to estimate as archetech is quite foreign and difficult to study. The good news is that enough scientists and mech designers have studied it that they have begun to publish textbooks and other teaching materials that are specifically written to make it easier for newcomers to master the basics. It would be better if I can receive personal tutoring from an authority in the field. I have already approached Gloriana to inquire whether she can spare her time to give me tutoring lessons, but…"

"Let me guess. She rejected you or only gave you the bare minimum." Ves based his guess on Alexa’s not-too-happy expression.

The former Terran nodded. "That is more or less what has happened."

"Figures. She told me in person not too long ago that she would address the problem that our clan only has one individual who can competently work with archetech, yet she refuses to teach a willing and able student. Is she afraid that you will become a competitor who will overtake her one day?"

Alexa shook her head. "I do not think so, sir. I believe that she regards me as your protege. As far as she is concerned, I should only be focusing on learning how to design better living mechs. Your wife is already trying to raise her own proteges, but they are not ready to contribute to serious mech design projects as of yet. She would much rather make it so that every archetech-qualified mech designer comes from her lineage. For her, this is about competition and control."

What a petty woman. Ves rubbed his face in exasperation. The clan clearly needed more mech designers who could work with archetech.

Gloriana should have taken the greater needs of the clan into account.

Instead, she deliberately snubbed Alexa in favor of raising her own proteges.

He knew it was pointless to confront her about this. She would roll out a perfectly logical argument like how only the right kind of mech designers would be able to maintain continuity with her approach and philosophy towards archetech. Only this way would the archetech specialists trained by her be able to coordinate with their teacher with the least amount of friction.

There was enough legitimacy in this reasoning that Ves could not rebuke her for her selfish motivations.

"Okay, forget about Gloriana then." Ves dismissively said. "There should be enough alternatives for you to learn from. If these teachers don’t already relax their terms because of an opportunity to cooperate with our Larkinson Clan, then we can offer valuable concessions to convince them to devote their personal time to enrich your understanding. In fact, it may be even better this way because you will develop your own style of working with archetech."

Alexa smiled. "That is what I have in mind as well. I do not know if you have paid much attention to this field, but ever since the Dark Zephyr Mark III and more recently the Amaranto Mark III have successively proven their superior strength and capabilities, archetech has become much more prominent among several academic and engineering circles. More mech designers are taking archetech seriously now that they have witnessed how it has significantly raised the performance and safety of our latest high-ranking mechs. More people are willing to learn archetech, and teachers are taking advantage of this by charging high fees for their expertise."

"We can afford their fees. As long as these guys don’t demand anything excessive, you can reimburse any amount they charge."

They talked a bit more about what to expect from Alexa’s studies of archetech.

"Currently, our understanding of archetech is relatively shallow." Alexa explained as she sat down. "We have only worked out the simplest facets of archetech and have yet to crack anything that possesses greater depth. We are not arche, so we have never been able to interface with archetech. We lack the archeshells that allow us to do so. While there are several who have developed technological means to overcome this problem, it doesn’t solve the problem of interpretation. The data that we receive from archetech is all garbled and alien."

"That is why my wife relies on Hekkel as an intermediary." Ves mentioned.

"Yes, using an arche engineer as your interpreter is a clever workaround, but there is much that Hekkel cannot understand or convey."

"A bad solution is no solution."

"What if I tell you that we can do better than that?" Alexa leaned forward as she spoke with greater enthusiasm. "What if we apply a different approach towards archetech that may allow humans such as ourselves to interface with archetech as if we are native arche?"

"I would say that this is impossible, but I know better than to make such a claim. You… clearly have a plan."

Alexa’s confidence rose. "I do, sir. My idea is to combine aspects of your design philosophy with archetech. I want to see if I can make an archetech product that is alive, ideally in the form of a single block of archemetal. If that is not possible, then I should at least be able to develop a living archemech. Regardless, as long as the mech is alive, it is inhabited by a spirit that can directly interface with humans. This spiritual interface can serve as a substitute to the more traditional archeshell interface!"

"I hate to burst your bubble, but we already tried that with the Dark Zephyr Mark III." Ves gently said. "Only Saint Tusa can interface with his ace light skirmisher, and he does not possess the technological acumen or expertise in archetech to understand the technical data supplied by his own machine."

"What I intend to accomplish should not be as rudimentary as that." Alexa shook her head. "I want to replicate the full experience of the native arche to humans. To that end, I want to develop a new variation of archetech that is inherently designed to align with our design philosophy. Originally, archetech was derived from the organic structure of archeshells. I am convinced that we can take advantage of this origin to make archetech more ’organic’ and increase its compatibility with living mechs by several times. Once I apply this new variation of archetech to a juggernaut such as the Otalon Sprius, I believe it will be a groundbreaking machine that can bring living mechs to a higher state!"

What an ambitious mech designer!

Ves instinctively wanted to tell her that she was being way too ambitious, but he soon changed his mind.

He was not much different back when he was a Journeyman. He never let his relatively modest rank get in the way of developing groundbreaking innovations!

If Alexa was confident enough in this endeavor to invest her valuable time and energy on it, then he was more than willing to let her pursue her passion.

"Your proposal is intriguing." He said in an appreciative tone. "I am not sure how viable it is, but even a partial success can yield valuable gains to the development of subsequent high-ranking mechs. What do you need in order to get started on this interesting research?"

"You can begin by acquiring a hundred or so archeshells for me. I need to study a large enough sample of them in order to understand how modern archetech differs from the original organic structural patterns of their archeshells. It would be even better if you can ship over living arche prisoners as well, but it is not completely necessary to obtain them. I am only interested in their shells."

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