The Mech Touch

Ves quite enjoyed spending time with the Avatars on the Redfeather.

Unlike mopers like Calabast, the Avatars possessed a great sense of confidence and battle spirit. While the Avatars certainly suffered several blows throughout the excursion into the Nyxian Gap, they remained ready for battle even after losing almost 180 comrades in arms.

It was too bad that the mechs they piloted tended to be mixed. Not many of them actually piloted a mech produced by the LMC.

This couldn't be helped, as Ves hadn't designed a full range of suitable mechs for any mech force. If not for the fact that the Bright Warrior actually covered four different mech types, the Avatar's mech roster would have looked even drearier!

The lack of LMC mechs fielded by the Avatars meant that Ves wouldn't be able to boost all of their mechs.

In some way, that could be seen as a detriment, but it could also be regarded as a benefit.

For now, Ves was only able to upgrade the Bright Warriors, Aurora Titans, Doom Guards and Deliverers that were being actively used by his mech forces. Each of these spaceborn models covered a decent spread of mech types. If not for the fact that fabricating the Bright Warrior was very troublesome, the Avatars should have been able to field an LMC mech to more.

As it was, Ves wanted to start off with upgrading the Bright Warrior mechs utilized by both the First and Second Spaceborn Mech Companies.

The unflinching loyalty and battle spirit shown by the Avatars turned them into the ideal mech pilots to test whether empowering mechs would work as he hoped.

Ves originally designed the Bright Warrior as a mech to train and uplift the Larkinson Clan. Every mech pilot assigned to the machines would be able to experience what it was like to gain some second-class mech capabilities.

In addition, the Bright Warrior design was also supposed to represent the Larkinson Clan at its best at the time. Even though bridge mechs sat in an awkward place between third-class mechs and second-class mechs, the Bright Warrior was still far more powerful than any mech the Larkinson Clan fielded at the time.

Though the power of the Bright Warrior had been eclipsed by the presence of the Penitent Sisters, Ves still considered his design to be a great success.

He was definitely going to design a second-class revision that incorporated all of his latest innovations when he survived this crisis. Perhaps he might start work on them immediately after completing his current round of active projects!

After the brave Avatar mech pilots all agreed to take part in a dangerous experimental procedure they knew nothing about, they all boarded shuttles that brought them to one of the combat carriers of the Penitent Sisters.

In order to obtain more data and be sure that every mech pilot was capable of enduring substantial stress, Ves wanted them all to undergo extensive health checks.

When he had brought this demand to Ranya, she suggested conducting the health inspections aboard the Surly Cockatrice. The Penitent Sister flagship may be a bit aged, but she possessed a large infirmary that was suitable to perform fast but very detailed inspections in a short amount of time.

With the pilots departing from the ship and the mech technicians ordered to move out, Ves was left alone other than some bodyguards.

After deactivating the monitoring system and deploying some jammers, he finally felt secure enough to perform his routine.

In fact, he didn't need to do anything. It was the Golden Cat doing all of the work.

"C'mon, Goldie." He held out the Larkinson Mandate. "Pump some of your juice into these shiny Bright Warriors. Each of these mechs can be more than what they are right now if you contribute to their growth."

Goldie's glowing, intangible head poked out from the book. She looked at the Bright Warriors with a familiar but also curious expression. Her tail flicked back and forth, moving through both the book and his hand.

Nyaaaa?

"I know you don't have as much energy as the other spirits, but this will be a worthwhile sacrifice. I won't ask you to pump everything you have into the mechs. Just a portion is enough for most of them. Can you do it, or do you need help?"

Nyaa…

Compared to his other design spirits, the Golden Cat truly didn't have enough energy to spare. Being connected to just tens of thousands of Larkinsons was different from being connected to millions of mech pilots!

The ancestral spirit suddenly perked up for some reason.

Nya! Nyaa nyaaa!

"Huh? Qilanxo is willing to help you? Can she do that?"

Nya nya nya!

Ves recalled that when he created the Golden Cat, he made use of Qilanxo's spiritual fragment as one of her ingredients. Ves wasn't sure whether that was enough for Goldie to make use of Qilanxo's donated spiritual energy, but evidently their relations were good enough to make such a course of action viable.

The presence of Qilanxo soon approached both of them. Ves sensed great concern from the design spirit. As an entity that had been watching over Ves, the Larkinson Clan and her three chosen, the predicament facing Task Force Predator was of great concern to the sacred god.

A wave of willingness exuded from her spirit. Qilanxo conveyed a willingness to supply Goldie with energy in order to make this measure possible.

"Thank you, Qilanxo. This will make everything easier."

Ves trusted the former exobeast because it was in her best interest to help out the Larkinson Clan.

Venerable Jannzi had just broken through to expert pilot and would likely be able to supply her with the higher-quality spiritual feedback she sorely needed to evolve.

Commander Orfan and Commander Dise were close to breaking through as well. Keeping Ves alive was also in her best interest because he was the only one who was able to connect her to more mech pilots and thereby possibly keep sustaining her existence.

It was due to these mutual intertwined interests that Ves appreciated her. As Qilanxo and Goldie began to do something together, he noticed that the latter began to grow visibly more energetic.

Just like how Ves channeled his excess spiritual energy into Lufa during the previous battle, now Qilanxo was doing the same to Goldie.

The process was fairly delicate. Despite their mutual ties and close friendship, it was difficult for Goldie to properly absorb and internalize Qilanxo's higher-quality spiritual energy.

It was like dropping cold water in a hot pan! Goldie initially experienced a substantial amount of pain and discomfort.

Nyaaaa!

Ves couldn't do anything but watch as Goldie slowly tried to break down the donated energy into a form more suitable for her to work with. Fortunately, Qilanxo actively helped her gain control over what she gained.

With their continued cooperation, they finally managed to develop a rudimentary method where Qilanxo was able to drip feed Goldie with a small amount of her high-quality spiritual energy ever so often.

Though the rate of transfer was fairly low, it was stable. The biggest advantage to this process was that Qilanxo possessed an abundant amount of spiritual energy. She had plenty to spare for Goldie.

This little development inadvertently solved a significant future problem for Ves. Some spiritual entities weren't suited to become design spirits for mass market mechs.

The Golden Cat was the guardian of the Larkinson Clan. She worked best when she watched over the Larkinsons. Why would Ves ever assign her to a mech used by strangers? Doing so would only decrease her fit to the clan.

Nyaaa!

Once Goldie was stuffed with energy, she eagerly passed some of it on the mech in front of Ves.

He could see the rich flow of spiritual energy entering seamlessly into the mech. No compatibility issues emerged despite most of it belonging to a different spirit just some time ago.

The Bright Warrior mech, which was very familiar with the Golden Cat, openly embraced the injection of energy. Its spiritual foundation ballooned and soon reached saturation without any hindrance.

"Amazing." Ves uttered.

This was a rather fantastic development! As long as Qilanxo could keep passing some of her excess spiritual energy to Goldie, the Larkinson Clan's ancestral spirit could effectively do much more than what she was capable of doing alone.

His next experiment would go much smoother if this was the case!

"Okay, that's enough. This mech is completely filled up. Let's move on to the next one."

Several hours went by as Ves directed Goldie to enhance the Bright Warriors by varying degrees.

Only a couple reached 100 percent saturation. These mechs absorbed the maximum possible amount of spiritual energy their foundations could bear. That said, they were also the most dangerous mechs to pilot! If anything went wrong, the mech pilot in question would definitely die! The only uncertainty was whether the mech pilot would die by way of head explosion or merely heavy brain damage.

One special mech that made Ves pause was the Quint. The sole masterwork mech model was Joshua's partner in battle in the Nyxian Gap.

Of all of the mech pilots who utilized his products, Joshua was the only one who understood his design philosophy the deepest. That meant that the talented mech pilot should be able to adjust to the changes the best.

Considering Joshua's genuine love and respect for LMC mechs, Ves thought it was extremely unlikely for the Quint to turn against its current mech pilot.

"Pump it up to the brim, Goldie."

Nyaaaa?

Goldie looked hesitant. She was aware of the importance of the Quint through her connection with Joshua. She knew enough about this current experiment that playing around with so much spiritual energy could be very dangerous to people!

Still, Ves was undeterred. He had made his choice after weighing all of the risks and benefits.

"Please, do it. The Quint can be so much more if you give it a boost."

She did what he wanted. The Golden Cat took her time and tried to make the Quint's spiritual foundation to grow as smoothly as possible.

The masterwork mech seemed to gain much more life compared to the other mechs. Ves sensed the difference. Its masterwork qualities seem to become more vivid and the mech's personality began to be more pronounced.

What surprised Ves even more was that the Quint's spiritual foundation possessed a higher ceiling than other mechs!

It was stuffed with so much spiritual energy that Ves could scarcely predict what would happen if the mech fully harmonized with Joshua. Whatever the result, it was sure to be impressive.

"Well done, Goldie!"

Nyaaa!

After finishing up with the mechs at the Redfeather, he moved over to the Greenfeather to empower the mechs of the Second Spaceborn Mech Company of the Avatars of Myth.

He roughly applied the same even distribution he used on the previous carrier. The mechs were either fully saturated, 75 percent saturated, 50 percent saturated and 25 percent saturated.

With so many different degrees of enhancement, Ves wanted to keep a close eye on how these mech pilots behaved and whether they performed better in training.

Since only a quarter of the mechs fit into every category, Ves hoped to prevent every mech pilot of the Bright Warriors from dying at the same time due to some overlooked mistake or something!

Once Ves was finished with the round of experiments, he left the Greenfeather and returned to the Scarlet Rose.

Meanwhile, some of the Avatar mech pilots assigned to the empowered mechs had returned from their health inspections.

When they returned to their ships and approached their assigned machines, each of them felt the difference.

"The mech does seem more alive somehow."

"Are you sure? I don't feel anything. The mech seems a little different though."

Every mech pilot who returned to their machines expressed a lot of eagerness in taking them out on a spin!