The Mech Touch

Ves was very satisfied with the round of experiments. The mechs enhanced to 25 percent, 50 percent and 75 percent saturation all stimulated their mech pilots to perform successively better.

The differences were fairly minor at 25 percent saturation, but those who were filled up three-fourths of the way exhibited pretty noticeable improvements in many areas.

The benefits of strengthening the spiritual foundation of his mechs were evident. The effects roughly matched his expectations, though he knew that a lot more time needed to pass before he could witness more drastic results.

If Ves had the leisure to run his experiment properly, then he would have left all of the affected Bright Warriors in their current states.

"I can't do that this time." He whispered to himself. "No matter how curious I am about the differences in their development, it's all moot if the pirates beat my forces. I need to survive first before I can explore my ideas further."

He already planned to raise the saturation of every mech to at least 75 percent. This appeared to be the level that most of his Avatars were capable of harnessing.

Trying to pair all of them with mechs at 100 percent saturation would likely go very poorly. The two Avatar mech pilots who had been carted off to the infirmary were proof that too much power was not always desirable.

Of course, the biggest surprise came from the two times that his test subjects succeeded in interfacing with the most powerful and dangerous group of mechs.

The success of Imon Ingvar proved that every mech pilot with spiritual potential met some kind of requirement that allowed them to endure the strain imposed by their mechs.

Ves had keenly noticed that once Imon had gotten over the initial bump, the young mech pilot became increasingly more relaxed. Either the heightened strain was temporary or Imon and his Bright Warrior mech had somehow managed to adjust to each other.

This was a good development. After all, a mech pilot that had to effectively resist the pressure of his own mech during battle would actually perform worse in battle! Such an awful outcome went against his original intentions. Ves would rather strip his mech of most of their added strength if that was the case.

"I still need to see how this develops in the coming weeks."

The experiment hadn't strictly ended after Ves prematurely ended Joshua's chance to pilot his newly-empowered Quint.

While it was possible for growth to happen instantly, Ves knew that his changes needed time to show their full value.

"Hopefully, the strength of all of the affected mechs and mech pilots will evolve quickly enough to make a difference a month later."

Of course, the mech that received most of his attention was the Quint.

When Ves moved to the Redfeather in order to inspect the individual mechs, he visited the Quint right away.

Joshua awaited his arrival with a resentful and grumpy expression. He made for a stark contrast with his current mech, which seemed to be extraordinarily active on a spiritual level. Its glow had become richer as well.

The masterwork mech had become greater than any of the other fully saturated mechs. Part of that might be due to its inherent advantage in quality, but Ves guessed that having a fantastic mech pilot like Joshua was also an added benefit.

Before the Quint received its latest boost of strength, its spiritual foundation was already more developed than the regular Bright Warriors, and it was mostly thanks to Joshua.

What took place today largely concurred with his current framework on mechs and spirituality.

When the mech was weak but the mech pilot was strong, the latter slowly nurtured the former.

Ves inferred that the reverse might also be true.

If the mech was strong but the mech pilot was weak, the latter would experience faster growth. Ves intended to track the improvement of all of the mech pilots that piloted the special mechs very closely.

The only snag was that not every mech pilot was capable of getting along with a mech that had grown too powerful.

It was a given that mechs that were 100 saturated provided the most benefits to their mech pilots.

The precondition was that the mech pilot was qualified enough to harness such strength.

So far, two mech pilots without spiritual potential failed to finish the bootup process.

To be honest, Ves was dissatisfied with the lack of observations.

What if another spiritually weak Avatar mech pilot managed to get over the most difficult hurdle?

Was it possible for this category of mech pilots to increase their tolerance to the point where they were capable of withstanding the burden?

If not for his current difficulties, Ves would have wanted to follow up on these questions.

For now, he didn't have the luxury to do so. He needed to pursue fast growth with as little complications as possible.

Since no one who piloted a mech at 75 percent saturation experienced any backlash, Ves was already willing to apply this standard to all of the other LMC mechs in his fleet.

Aside from perhaps the Doom Guard, Ves wanted to empower as many mechs as possible with this new innovation.

Empowering hundreds of mechs did not come without a cost. All of those Deliverers, Aurora Titans, Bright Warriors and possibly other mechs demanded a lot of spiritual energy to fill them up to 75 percent saturation.

Ves wasn't worried about this issue. Only Goldie had to borrow her spiritual energy. Many of his remaining design spirits weren't short on spiritual energy due to the fact that they presided over mass-produced mech models.

If the amount of mechs that needed to be empowered numbered at at least ten-thousand, then Ves might start to worry.

This wasn't a concern this time because the amount of LMC mechs in the fleet was not numerous enough to impose an excessive burden to any design spirit.

Unexpectedly, designing mechs for the market provided an added benefit to his current circumstances. His design spirits would have never been so flush with spiritual energy if he had chosen not to sell his mechs to the private sector!

Ves knew that he needed to continue with this current course. As his Larkinson Clan grew in numbers, more and more mechs had to be enhanced to 75 percent saturation. This was very costly and could quickly deplete the spiritual energy reserves of his design spirits.

The only way to ensure that his Larkinson mech pilots utilized the strongest possible mech was to keep harvesting the spiritual feedback of millions of mech pilots.

"I might even need more if the current limit grows."

When Ves observed certain powerful mechs such as the Quint, he noticed that its spiritual foundation was actually stronger than the spiritual foundation of Imon Ingvar's Bright Warrior.

There was still room for growth in this area. The better the mech pilot and the older the mech, the higher its maximum limit reached.

While this entailed many possible dangers to the mech pilots who bonded with these growing mechs, Ves believed that they were capable of growing in tandem. A growing mech would never let its mech pilot remain stagnant.

"Sir? When will I be able to pilot the Quint again?"

Ves turned his attention back to the present. "Don't be so impatient. You'll get to pilot it when we need you at your best. Right now is not the time."

"What? Sir, you can't take the Quint away! I need to pilot it! Please! Just let me connect with it for a time!" Joshua pathetically pleaded.

Unfortunately for the mech pilot, Ves remained unmoved. He already had a thorough plan in mind. No amount of begging would convince him to release the Quint.

He studied his masterwork mech with a critical eye. "I'm going to upgrade the Quint."

"Is that possible?" Joshua looked startled. "I thought that masterwork mechs had to remain exactly the same in order to retain their quality level."

"That's not strictly true." Ves shook his head. "There is still room for change. Otherwise, getting hit even once might ruin the Quint. The most important requirement is to retain the essence of the mech."

Joshua didn't understand much about mech design. All he cared about was how Ves intended to strengthen the Quint.

"What do you intend to improve?"

"I have progressed quite a bit since I completed the Bright Warrior design. I know it well, and I have thought about solving some of the issues inherent in the design whenever I thought back on it. The main complication is that we are still in the Nyxian Gap. Despite all of the plunder that we have obtained, we don't have access to all of the exotics I need to perform the upgrades I want."

"Does that mean the Quint won't be as strong as you want it to be, sir?"

Ves grinned. "Oh no. Quite the opposite in fact. We have looted a lot of random exotics, some of which are very powerful or have very interesting effects. It might be possible to combine them into fantastic parts that can add powerful capabilities to the Quint."

Part of the benefits he gained from this experiment was that he possessed a deeper understanding of the essence of mechs. Though he hadn't proven all of his theories yet, he was confident that he was able to upgrade a masterwork mech.

The Quint was his own work, after all. He possessed a very strong feel for the mech. If someone other than Ves or Gloriana tinkered with the mech, the chances that something would go wrong was significantly greater. Yet because Ves was revisiting one of his old works, he merely had to refresh his memory.

Perhaps he could plan his upgrades with Gloriana. Both of them designed the Bright Warrior design after all and two heads were better than one.

In fact, they could also design some upgrades for some other mechs.

Joshua's exaggerated reaction towards his enhanced mech suggested that Ves might be able to provide his other expert candidates with opportunities.

Ves intended to replace their current mechs with Bright Warriors configured and modified for their specific inclinations.

Perhaps this might actually be a way to exert control over when his expert candidates were able to advance to expert pilots!

In any other circumstance, Ves would have leaped with joy if he found out that this was a viable method to accelerate the breakthroughs of expert candidates.

Many of them had waited for quite some time! Even if a formidable pirate fleet was bearing down on Task Force Predator, Ves always doubted whether all of his remaining expert candidates would be able to advance during the decisive battle.

Now, he had cleared much of his doubts.

Of course, Ves and Gloriana would have to perform extensive modifications to customize the new mechs to the expert candidates. Aside from Joshua, none of his other remaining expert candidates piloted an LMC mech.

Due to lack of time and resources, Ves planned to take some Bright Warriors and tailor them their new users.

The versatility of the Bright Warrior design was very helpful at this time.

Commander Dise was very compatible with the swordsman mech configuration. Ves might even ask Ketis to assist in preparing this specific mech.

As for Commander Orfan, Ves could either hand her a lancer mech configuration or start from a swordsman mech configuration but replace its sword with a spear.

Tusa's case was a bit more difficult. He specialized in light skirmishers. As Ves hadn't designed a serious light mech yet, he wasn't able to provide Tusa with an easy solution.

Spiritual foundation enhancement only worked for LMC mechs, so it was not very practical to apply this technique to Tusa's current machine.

Perhaps it might be possible to give Tusa the mech he needed by taking a Bright Warrior and modifying it extensively. It wouldn't be the first time that Ves stripped down a medium mech to the point where it became a light mech!