The Mech Touch

The Avatar mech pilots who had just returned from their health inspections weren't allowed to hop into their mechs immediately.

Due to all of the risks involved with this unprecedented experiment, Ves ordered the Avatars to stand by and wait their turns.

In the meantime, Ves gathered a bunch of his Braves and assigned them to watch over the telemetry of the mechs that he permitted to deploy.

Ves knew exactly how much saturation every individual Bright Warrior had reached.

Obviously, he was not going to begin with ordering the mechs that had reached full saturation to deploy.

If there was something fundamentally wrong with his theories, then he at least wanted his Avatar mech pilots to come away with a bad headache instead of chunks of their brains splattered all over the interior of their cockpits!

Joshua raised an immediate complaint, but Ves swiped his message away after taking a brief glance at it. There was no way that Ves would risk the mech pilot with the greatest value to him due to impatience!

"Alright, let's start." He told the Braves in the design lab.

Much more people were monitoring the mechs that were about to deploy. Various chief technicians and techs aboard the Redfeather and the Greenfeather were keeping a very close eye on the performance of the newly-empowered mechs.

No one knew what Ves had actually done with them. It didn't really take that much time and nothing about the mechs seemed different aside from performing some minor technical tweaks.

Yet somehow, the same mechs felt different when their mech pilots reunited with their machines.

Each of the Avatars had been taught to view their mechs as partners rather than tools. As Ves intended them to be the elites who utilized his mechs the best, how could they be ignorant of the life that existed in their machines?

As the Avatar mech pilots each recognized that their paired machines had become greater in some way, they hardly couldn't wait!

Ves viewed this enthusiasm as a good thing. Their love for their mechs and their eagerness to pilot them meant that the chances of rejection should be minimal. So long as all of the mech pilots in question did not hate their own mechs, they would likely be able to forge a greater and more intimate bond with them. He hoped that none of their enthusiasm faded as they waited their turns.

Since the Avatar mech pilots assigned to mechs with full saturation would be going last, it was very critical for them to remain positive and eager. Ves had already passed instructions to Commander Melkor to monitor this group closely and pull them out of the queue if there was anything wrong about their moods.

Ketis stepped to his side and peered at the projections that Ves had pulled up. The main one currently displayed a feed of the mech hangar of the Redfeather.

The first spiritually-enhanced mech was about to be deployed.

Though its foundation had only been boosted up to twenty-five percent saturation, that was still substantially greater than before.

A female mech pilot hopped inside the cockpit. As she sat down on the piloting chair and prepped for deployment, a sense of anticipation swept through the design lab.

Even if the assistants didn't know what Ves had done, they all looked forward to a show.

"Do you think what you have done will really strengthen us?" Ketis softly asked.

Ves tapped the side of his smooth-shaven chin. "I do, but don't expect immediate results. Right now, I just want to make sure that the changes I've made don't pose an imminent threat to the mech pilots. For this reason, I made sure to install a quick kill switch into every mech."

"You what?!"

"This is a dangerous experiment, Ketis. Do you think what I've done is something I was ready to roll out to our mech pilots straight away? Hell no! Originally, I planned to research this option further when we returned to civilized space. Now that the pirates are trying to lead us into a dead end, I have no choice but to throw caution to the wind. That said, the least I can do is to prepare as many precautions as possible."

He would rather want his pilots alive but disoriented than dead by gruesome means.

When the female Avatar finally completed her routine check, she activated the mech.

The Bright Warrior slowly began to light up as various systems came online. The gleaming gold-coated mech seemed to glow richer and more vividly as the life that was dormant inside began to connect with its familiar mech pilot.

Ves stared very closely. He studied the Avatar mech pilot's appearance very closely for any signs of pain, panic or discomfort. At the same time, he also paid attention to her life signs. Once any of the parameters reached a dangerous level, Ves was ready to press the button that immediately shut the mech down regardless of what it was doing.

"It looks good so far." Ketis remarked. "The mech pilot seems happy. Just look at her smile. It's as if she has found her own Sharpie."

Her analogy, though weird, seemed apt.

While Ves was too far away from the Redfeather to extend his spiritual senses so far away, right now the expression of the mech pilot said it all. Pure bliss seemed to emanate from the mech pilot as she merged her mind with a reciprocating machine.

The Bright Warrior mech completed its bootup process without any issue. Ves even suspected that this was the smoothest starting procedure the mech had ever been through!

Ves and many other people watched the complicated telemetry projected in front of their eyes. Every important parameter appeared normal, but this was just the start.

It still remained to be seen whether the mech posed a threat to its own pilot. It might be possible for the machine to inflict harm on its mech pilot even if the machine did not mean to do so. That was why the mech had to go through further testing.

"Please proceed to launch into space and initiate the routine that we have specified."

The mech in question slowly walked across the mech hangar until it reached the exit. Once the machine smoothly engaged its flight system and emerged into space, the machine began to perform some basic movements.

The Bright Warrior that Ves had chosen to deploy first was in its swordsman mech configuration. This gave the mech the greatest range of motion. As the mech performed more and more complex maneuvers in space, Ves continued to observe the condition of the mech pilot while keeping at least some of his attention on the performance of the mech.

Despite the mech pilot's brilliant smile, her machine did not appear to be any stronger. Its movements seemed more fluent perhaps, but the differences were very subtle.

To be honest, the Bright Warrior looked like any other of its kind. Some of the assistant mech designers tasked to pay attention to the performance of the mech grew disappointed.

What was all of this fuss about life-threatening danger and whatnot? Wasn't this just a regular mech deployment?

Others believed that the changes purely affected the glow or some other intangible elements that they were in the dark about.

The rest of the test proceeded without any noticeable differences. The mech pilot obediently followed the prescribed routine. The mech swung its swords against empty space for a time before an Aurora Titan appeared.

The two mechs began to hit each other with slow and controlled attacks. The power and frequency of the attacks slowly rose as the Bright Warrior showed no notable deviations. Once both mechs went at each other with serious attacks, Ves finally became sure that not even the rush of battle would lead to severe deviations.

"Alright. Pull her back. I've seen enough. Send out the next mech on the list."

This process went on for more than an hour as Bright Warrior after Bright Warrior exhibited no meaningful differences in their performance. Certainly, their mech pilots had become a lot more comfortable with interfacing with their mechs, but it was hard to see how this change would transform their battle strength.

Though Ves also began to feel bored now that he confirmed his guess, he still stuck to the original order. He wanted confirmation that every affected mech was still safe to pilot.

When every mech that had gained 25 percent saturation had their turn, the first mech with 50 percent saturation quietly deployed into space.

Compared to the previous mech pilots, the joy and happiness of the mech pilot was a bit more evident this time. Ves sensed some elevated life signs, but nothing had reached alarming levels.

"This fellow looks more excited than the previous ones." Ketis astutely remarks. "If I have to describe the difference, I would say that the ones who came before behaved as if they reunited with their childhood friends. This one looks like he's meeting his lover."

Though Ves wouldn't describe the differences in such a way, they roughly fit the circumstances. Obviously, the first Avatar mech pilot to deploy in a mech with 50 percent saturation had formed a stronger bond with his machine.

As the Bright Warrior in a rifleman mech configuration began to fire potshots at distant asteroids, Ves compared the mech pilot's current scores to his previous results.

The difference was small, but there was a definite difference. The mech pilot exhibited greater reaction speed and accuracy than before, and the improvement was just good enough to be statistically significant.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone else noticed the differences. The Bright Warrior still performed like a Bright Warrior. Even if its overall performance had grown by three percent, outwardly it was still the same mech!

"Alright. That's enough for this test. Send out the next on the list."

Ves did not underestimate this modest boost. He constantly reminded himself that this was just the start. The best was still to come.

As Bright Warriors continued to deploy from the Redfeather and the Greenfeather, Ves observed that the pattern was roughly consistent. Even if Ves had done nothing to improve the technical performance of the mechs with 50 percent saturation, their mech pilots were always able to make better use of their machines.

When it was time for the mechs with 75 percent saturation to show what they were capable of, an immediate deviation took place.

The heart rate of the mech pilot spiked along with other life signs!

Ves immediately hovered his finger right over the button. If the bootup process had truly gone awry, he wouldn't hesitate to shut off the mech!

"My mech!" The mech pilot eventually exulted. "I never imagined my mech could be so fantastic! I feel so great!"

Ves and many others let out a relieved breath. The reaction of the Avatar mech pilot almost frightened them. By now, many Braves noticed that the reactions of the mech pilots had grown successively more dramatic.

It stood to reason that the ones who were about to go last would definitely exhibit the most dramatic reaction!

As more and more mech pilots interfaced with their mechs, the same spectacle repeated over and over. Joy overflowed the lucky mech pilots as they fully embraced their newly-empowered mechs!

Finally, the final batch of mechs was about to go up. The Bright Warriors that had been stuffed with Goldie's spiritual energy until they reached saturation were the most special and dangerous of them all. Each of them possessed the capability to kill their mech pilots if anything went amiss.

Ves paid special attention to Imon Ingvar. He deliberately added 100 percent saturation to his assigned mech. As one of the few Avatars with spiritual potential, Imon's reaction would likely be more extreme than normal.

As for Joshua, he would go last. The Quint was far more special than the other Bright Warriors.

"Come. Show me your power." Ves whispered.