The Mech Touch

Ves placed his hand on a P-stone and absorbed a significant proportion of stored spiritual energy.

His current state was very special at the moment. He channeled the Illustrious One to such a deep extent that he truly started to entertain illusions that he had become a luminar!

Of course, this was still an illusion. He retained enough awareness as a human to retain his original cognition. The only difference was that he had plugged in something extra to his mind that vastly expanded his perspective and allowed him to think and perceive in a completely different manner.

If it didn't cost so much spiritual energy to maintain this deep immersion state, Ves would have gladly spent hours in this state in order to understand technology and reality from a completely alien viewpoint!

As it was, he had a job to do. His glowing eyes settled onto the crystal cube and the machines he used to synthesize his crystals.

"I know what to do now."

He had already warmed up the production machines and prepared all of the necessary materials. He decided to test out his current hunch by creating a luminar crystal using a formula he had already used before.

As the production machines went to work, Ves constantly monitored the process.

He only took action when the initial form of the crystal took shape!

Different from last time where he only tentatively interacted with the crystal cube, this time he manipulated it as if he was an old hand at it. The crystal cube seemed as familiar as the design suite he often used to design his iconic mechs.

While he hadn't mastered all of the secrets and intricacies of luminar technology, the bounty of knowledge and perspective that the Illustrious One brought him had given him a lot of revelations.

Ves never knew that the luminar design spirit possessed so much understanding and technical proficiency in crystal technology. It probably inherited this legacy from both the ancient crystal builder and the Blinding One.

Yet inheriting didn't necessarily translate into understanding. Perhaps the ancient crystal builder or the powerful Blinding One was able to make extensive use of luminar technology, but the Illustrious One was a separate existence!

It had essentially memorized a lot of information by rote but completely lacked the training and skills to actually make use of it. The scattered but priceless pieces of technical information was nothing but gibberish to a design spirit that never went to school!

Ves understood now why the Illustrious One was only able to provide him with limited help before this. The design spirit wasn't actually an expert in these matters and his ability to interpret all of this inherited information was severely constrained.

Yet now that a real mech designer came in touch with all of this inherited information, the story had completely changed.

Though Ves wished he could understand even more crucial knowledge, the insights he had already managed to glean in this short time was already enough for him to figure out a solution to his current problem!

As a luminar crystal slowly took shape, Ves continued to input different commands into the crystal cube. In fact, now that he began to channel the Illustrious One, he felt as if the alien relic had truly opened up to him this time. The cube executed each of his commands with greater diligence!

Slowly but surely, a complex array of alien circuits formed within the crystal he was making. There were twice as many circuits as before as Ves had deliberately inserted a specific array that was actually quite common in the more advanced crystals that the aliens used to make!

Though this circuitry pattern was actually quite complicated and had to be rearranged on an individual basis depending on the properties of every crystal, the crystal cube was able to automate all of these calculations and ensure that each circuitry pattern integrated adequately with every crystal.

Ves suspected that a true crystal specialist might be able to perform this process to a much more effective degree, but Ves lacked the foundation to do so. He could only take a step back and activate the right settings so that the crystal cube did most of the work on his behalf.

"This is actually quite a handy tool."

The crystal cube actually had more functions than forming internal circuitry, but the Illustrious One wasn't able to figure them out yet. Perhaps that might in the future.

Soon enough, the production machines finished synthesizing and polishing the crystal. Ves picked it up and inserted it in the test rifle before handing the weapon over to his honor guard.

"You know what to do. Just fire a couple of test shots."

The loyal guard nodded and moved to the firing range. When the soldier pulled the trigger, the rifle spat out bright white beams that mainly dealt physical damage to the target dummies.

Compared to before, the conversion of thermal energy to kinetic energy was a lot higher than before! Ves didn't need to look at the sensor readings to know that the target dummies got punched significantly harder than before!

Ves wasn't that excited about the effect, though. The efficiency of the transformation was too low and a lot of energy was wasted in the process.

In fact, it was much simpler and more effective to employ a railgun or a gauss rifle in order to deal physical damage to an enemy!

"There are still a few advantages to this type of luminar crystal though."

For one, just like any other pure energy-based rifle, it produced no recoil. This led to the odd and extremely special instance of a mech being able to deal a powerful punch without worrying about enduring the opposite and equal reaction!

On the surface, it was a gross violation of Newton's third law of motion!

This opened up the possibility of arming laser rifleman mechs with specially-designed rifles that could be loaded with different crystals like the test rifle that his honor guard had just fired.

When the ranged mechs faced an opponent that was resistant to laser beams and positron beams, they could slot in a different luminar crystal in their weapons and suddenly fire odd beams that hit like solid projectiles!

In the same way, when facing an opponent that was resilient against physical damage, the rifleman mechs could swap out their physical luminar crystals for one that allowed them to fire powerful lasers or other energy-based beams!

His glowing eyes brightened. This was a great way to increase the versatility of Venerable Joshua and Venerable Davia's upcoming expert mechs!

In fact, he even wanted to apply this weapon technology to the next generation of his ranged mech designs!

"I can definitely turn the next edition of my Crystal Lord design into something special!"

This wasn't the time to design the Crystal Lord Mark III, though. He quickly reminded himself that he was actually trying to improve a different aspect.

"Please bring back the rifle."

When his honor guard passed on the slightly-heated weapon, he commanded a bot to remove the freshly-used luminar crystal.

Ves deployed some scanners and began to record a lot of readings. He noticed plenty of difference from the last crystal he synthesized with the same ingredient formula.

The increased utilization of the crystal cube had made a huge difference!

It was like the auto designer that Ves had previously used to develop the initial form of the Ouroboros. Its simplistic design interface was so dumbed down that even a child could design a working mech with this user-friendly system!

Yet without understanding how mechs actually worked and how many variables affected their performance, it was impossible for an amateur to design a good mech.

Only someone with the right expertise was able to make full use of all of the range of possibilities offered by these interfaces.

Though Ves did not feel that he had reached the level of a Master Mech Designer in the art of manipulating the crystal cube, he definitely felt as if he had graduated from a Novice to an Apprentice!

Ves did not claim to reach a higher level than that. The crystal cube possessed a lot more depth that he and the Illustrious One had yet to decipher.

When the bot removed the luminar crystal, Ves commanded it to place the object in a special chamber that he had also set up beforehand.

For safety's sake, Ves took a lot of steps back and hid behind a shielded enclosure. After activating a number of sensors, he activated a command that quickly resulted in a loud noise!

CLANG!

A solid metal rod dropped down from above and fell straight through a pipe before colliding against the luminar crystal placed directly below!

If the heavy metal rod fell right on top of Ves' body, his skull would have probably shattered on impact!

Yet when it impacted against the luminar crystal, not a single crack emerged!

Under ordinary circumstances, luminar crystals were much less capable of resisting physical damage. They were naturally good at absorbing or at least resisting energy damage, but they fared worse when hit by hammer-like blows.

Yet despite launching a powerful physical attack right away, the crystal still remained remarkably intact!

"Did I succeed?"

Ves performed extensive scans just to be certain. The scanners failed to detect any significant damage even on a microscopic level!

"Then let's amp up the damage. If it can remain functional against a second-class attack, then that is enough!"

The metal rod spontaneously floated up into the air again. Once it had reached the ceiling, it began to drop downwards but with greater momentum than last time!

CLANG!

The crystal still remained intact.

Ves repeated the test several times. It wasn't until Ves employed enough force to make a second-class light mech feel pain that the much-abused luminar crystal finally began to crack.

Of course, the prior blows must have caused it to accumulate a lot of stress, but that still didn't change the fact that the crystal he made had finally met his minimum standard!

"It's a success!" Ves grinned!

Even though he only obtained a preliminary result, he was pretty sure that he could replicate this result on other types of luminar crystals. As long as he integrated the same physical reinforcement circuit pattern on his next batch of crystals, he would be able to obtain definitive proof that this was the right way to make second-class luminar crystals!

"I don't even have to make use of high-quality exotics or other extravagant materials in order to make these new crystals!"

Previously, Ves had continually tried out formulas that utilized a greater proportion of higher-quality materials. This was actually a stupid way to make a better product. The luminars may have been successful in the past, but he seriously doubted that they were willing to squander so many resources on inefficient production methods!

Ves had plenty of hours left to refine his initial result. He did not hesitate to drain his P-stones of accumulated spiritual energy in order to sustain his deep immersion state with the Illustrious One.

By continuing to meld with a portion of the Illustrious One, he managed to make some progress in optimizing and improving his new method. The physical reinforcement circuit patterns that he applied to his subsequent crystals all became a bit better, allowing them to resist more damage before cracking!

The rate of improvement eventually plateaued as Ves hit a bottleneck, but by this time the crystals he made were so hard that they could even be used as the basis of a low-quality crystal-based armor system!

Sadly, there were so many practical problems involved with trying to design a mech that was made completely out of crystals that Ves rejected the notion of designing such a ridiculous machine.

Even so, the hardness and toughness of his latest batch of crystals were more than enough to be utilized in his upcoming expert mech design projects.