The Mech Touch

Ever since he realized he fell in the hands of the Fridaymen, Ves tried to guess the identity of the ultimate beneficiary.

He half-expected to meet a familiar face, and he did in the form of an old classmate.

Of all the people he expected to meet, he never thought he would meet Patricia Scheider under these circumstances!

Oh, it should be Patricia Cain by now. She recently married a random Apprentice from the Carnegie Group.

Patricia should no longer be a Brighter now. She abandoned her former state and moved up to a better one!

Yet even if she had abandoned her roots and become a Fridayman by marriage, Ves never expected that she would stoop so low and be part of his kidnapping!

Being betrayed by Ghanso was already bad enough to Ves. Getting stabbed in the back by Patricia somehow sparked an irrational fury within his heart!

The mild glare he directed towards her only encompassed a small part of his desire to take revenge!

He tried his best to temper his fury. It had already been boiling for a while, but in this precarious circumstance losing control would not help matters further!

He forcibly suppressed his desire to kill Patricia. Looking at her demure posture and her deference towards Aisling Curver, she should be just as she said, a helper.

In order to hide his temper, Ves decided to distract himself by satisfying his curiosity. He restored his composure and tried to maintain a calm smile.

"Patricia.. why are you here?"

"Everyone must contribute to the war between the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony." She replied with a calm voice. "As an Apprentice under Master Null, I must also do my part. Due to my limited foundation, I decided to leverage my familiarity with the Bright Republic and applied to be part of Lady Curver's monitoring team."

"Did you target me, Patricia?"

She shook her head. "It was never my intention to aim at you specifically."

"My assistant is right." Aisling Curver spoke, obviously intending to direct his attention away from Patricia. "In fact, we never acted proactively. I intended to abide by my mission and monitor your state's resistance against the sandmen without intervening. It was just a complete coincidence that General Ulrich Cavendish approached me with an interesting proposal."

"You are supposed to be a monitor, right?" Ves frowned. "Doesn't that mean you shouldn't interfere at all in our state's affairs?"

Lady Curver grinned. "That is ordinarily true, but General Cavendish approached me as a representative of his state. The Bright Republic is really desperate, you know? I should know since I have been monitoring your state for some time. Its infrastructure is falling apart and Bentheim is starting to crack under the pressure. While we Fridayman don't particularly care about your state, it is not that difficult to lift a finger and increase its chances of survival."

The Friday Coalition didn't care about the Bright Republic. However, if the latter fell, the Coalition would have to expend some effort and time to recultivate relations with the state that succeeded it. That cost the Coalition far more than dispatching a single mercenary corps to help ease the pressure!

Ves sighed. He couldn't really fault Lady Curver for being generous enough to lend a hand to his state. It was just that the deal was too sordid! The price for her assistance was by handing him over as if he was nothing more than a commodity!

Ves hated being treated as a commodity!

"While I admit that the help you offered is very helpful to our state, I object to the means you have employed. I had no say in this! No one asked me if I wanted to fall into your hands!"

He couldn't hold his anger this time.

Fortunately, Lady Curver did not blame him for showing his resentment. She merely smiled at him as if everything was okay!

"You're upset. You have a right to be. While I am not proud of what I have done, I think it is a very great opportunity for the both of us! I have always kept my eye on you, did you know? As the illustrious designer of the Desolate Soldier, I have tracked your accomplishments very closely! If that obsessive pig Gloriana hadn't stolen you first, I would have already introduced myself to you! Luckily, General Cavendish's scheme gave me an opening!"

"You're.. a fan?"

"Oh, yes!" The blonde woman gushed. "I just love your glows and the way you manage to influence your mech pilots in a strange but gentle manner! This is exactly what I need to branch out my design philosophy and pursue a different path from my Master!"

Ves looked up at that. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Let me introduce myself to you again. My name is Aisling Curver. I'm a Journeyman Mech Designer and a direct disciple of Master Toqueman Huron! Are you familiar with my master?"

A direct disciple! This meant that Lady Curver was similar to Tristan Wesseling! She inherited the design philosophy of a genuine Master Mech Designer!

"If I recall.. Master Huron is a professor at the Clarion University of Mech Design, which is one of the premier mech design institutions of the Gauge Dynasty!"

The Gauge Dynasty was considerably more powerful than the Carnegie Group! The prestige of Clarion University surpassed the Leemar Institute of Technology by a significant margin!

"Correct! You know your Masters. Are you aware of his specialty?"

Ves hesitated for a moment. "I only memorized that he specializes in neural interconnectivity. I'm afraid I am not aware of what that means."

"That's not surprising. Neural interconnectivity is one of the more esoteric specialties. It is a rather obscure field that is technically classified as a Class VIII design philosophy, but is actually as difficult to progress as a Class IX design philosophy!"

"Why is that so?"

Lady Curver relaxed her posture. She was relieved that Ves no longer addressed what had happened but instead asked about her passion!

"Neural interconnectivity is a wondrous field! Let me explain it to you this way. When you think about a mech, do they ever fight alone?"

Ves shook his head. "They're always deployed in squads or larger units. A group of mechs working together can get a lot more things done than a single expensive mech! Of course, the quality, design, cost and mech pilot all affect their relative strengths. It is not a sure thing that a single good mech can defeat a squad of mediocre mechs, but it is possible as long as the former is outrageous enough!"

For example, Ghanso's Glittering Comet annihilated his Avatars and Sentinels without encountering any significant resistance!

While a large part of that was because he was representing the Mech Corps, his expert mech already caused his opponents to give up any hope of restraining it! The Glittering Comet was simply too powerful!

"As an experienced marketer, you should be aware that the mechs in use today are mostly employed in groups." Curver noted. "If a mech model is too expensive, then our customers won't be able to equip all of their mech pilots with a machine. If a mech model is too cheap, then our customers will face a bottleneck in manpower! The ideal mech ought to be positioned somewhere in between. This means that there is a range of cost and quality that hits the sweet spot of the market."

"I know all of this. You don't have to explain the composition of market demand to me. Budget mechs and midrange mechs are the most prominent mechs on the market."

"Okay, since you know this, let's take a midrange mech design as a starting point. How can you strengthen this product?"

"There are many ways to do so. You incorporate more powerful exotics. You licence more advanced components. You expand your knowledge base and improve your application of it. You refine your design style and implement more ingenious solutions. You partner up with another mech designer who can compensate for your weaknesses."

Lady Curver nodded again and again. "Those are all valid solutions. The problem is that it's difficult to employ them. The budget of a midrange mech only goes so far. It's not viable to replace a medium-grade exotic with a high-grade exotic. That will certainly double or triple the cost of your mech model! As for the other solutions, each of them will either break the bank or exceed your capabilities! Only the last solution you've offered is different, but let's leave that for later."

"What is the point you are trying to make, milady?"

"Call me Aisling, please. I am not your enemy here. In fact, it's the opposite! I'm your benefactor! I intend to save you from the clutches of those witches who see you as nothing more than a boy toy! You should thank me for offering you an opportunity to regain your dignity as a man!"

Ves scowled and pounded his chest with his palm. "I never asked to be saved! Let me make one thing clear. I love Gloriana!"

While his relationship with Gloriana was very problematic on many levels, Ves had truly developed an affection for her! Hexer or not, female supremacist or not, the love they shared was completely genuine!

After encountering betrayal after betrayal in the past couple of days, Ves had grown very disillusioned with people.

He had come to hate the act of betrayal and anyone who resorted it! No matter how righteously they justified their betrayals, people like Ghanso and Patricia deserved to get their comeuppance!

It was due to being the victim of betrayal that Ves felt as if his mind had changed. He developed a new principle that stated that he should never engage in betrayal unless his victims truly deserved it! He refused to lower himself to their standards!

This was also why he adored Gloriana. She not only trusted him completely, she had also remained loyal to him throughout their relationship!

Even now, Ves was sure that Gloriana was trying her best to get him back! He could count on her to track him down and rescue him from his captors!

Of course, Lady Curver did not take well to his declaration. She frowned and flipped her lustrous blond hair.

"It seems like the Hexers have already begun to turn you into their slave. Has Ves always been so susceptible to women, Patricia?"

"I can't say. I did not pay much attention to him while we were studying at Rittersberg." His old classmate innocently replied.

Curver pressed a finger against her lips while staring at Ves in pity. "You poor, poor man. Who knows how much self-esteem you'll lose if you remain by Gloriana's side. Don't worry, Ves! You're free now! I'll do my best to restore you as a man!"

"Let's not talk about this." Ves waved his hand. "You still haven't explained what neural interconnectivity is all about."

"Oh, yes! Well, getting back to my explanation, neural interconnectivity is simply an alternative solution to the problem I've mentioned. Aside from employing those other solutions, some mech designers in the past decided to increase the performance of their mechs by relying on teamwork! As long as the mech pilots are all trained to coordinate and act in unison with each other, the strength they can bring to bear will absolutely be more than the sum of its parts!"

"This does not sound very odd to me, Aisling. All mech militaries, from my Bright Republic's Mech Corps to your Gauge Dynasty's Sundered Phalanx rely on teamwork to gain an edge over their opponents."

"Ah, but the teamwork I'm talking about goes beyond regular coordination." The woman tapped her head. "Have you ever wondered what would happen if you expand the man-machine connection to more than a single mech and mech pilot? What if you connect multiple mech pilots together? As long as they achieve a certain degree of synchronization, the coordination they can exert will make their unit fight like a single entity!"

What?!

"That.. sounds crazy!" Ves uttered in shock. "Messing with the man-machine connection is extremely dangerous! Any deviations can easily inflict permanent brain damage to the mech pilot!"