The Mech Touch

Nyaaaaaa.

Goldie's lovely furred expression looked up at him from within the Larkinson Mandate. She not only looked completely innocent, but also cute in a way that appealed to any cat lover.

She was just too adorable!

When Ves faced his own creation, he couldn't help but soften up and calm down to an extent.

"What did you do?"

Goldie blinked.

Nyaaaa.

"I see."

The explanation was actually not that complicated. Ves had always wanted Goldie to be a network facilitator, but he also wanted her to become something more.

One of his more ambitious goals for Goldie was to enable her to pass on valuable piloting-related knowledge, experience, instincts and other benefits to those connected to the Larkinson Network.

This promising feature never panned out the way he wanted to. It was too much to ask for Goldie to permanently instill the valuable accumulation of a veteran expert pilot to someone new and inexperienced.

The only instance where this piloting knowledge transfer somewhat worked was with the Chiron. However, the Chiron only really reached its full potential when Ves set up a special circumstance where an expert candidate transferred a portion of his or her elevated piloting ability to a less capable pilot.

Though Ves was already happy with the way his understated Chiron design accelerated the training of the future generation of Larkinson mech pilots, it was still a training mech. Its actual standards and fighting prowess was so far below the Bright Warrior that even the thought of putting it on the battlefield would spark a mutiny among his men!

Outside of these limited scenarios, the so-called Ancestral Learning ability that Ves had devised in the past never really saw any play.

Until now.

Ves remembered that while he designed the Chiron around this new and unconventional knowledge transfer method, he also hoped that the Bright Warrior turned into a suitable vehicle.

However, nothing came out of it. Whether it was the original Bright Warrior or the second-class version, neither of them enabled one mech pilot to transfer his skill and experience to another mech pilot.

He gradually forgot about it as the Bright Warrior already performed well enough to make him satisfied. While he would have been happy if it could do more, its primary purpose was to serve as a user-friendly starter platform for his Larkinson mech pilots.

His evaluation changed today. Seeing the Avatars figure out how to activate the Ancestral Learning ability on their own without his assistance showed him that he had made his conclusions about this issue too early.

Nyaa nyaaa nyaaa.

Goldie did not hide anything and explained the process clearly to Ves. It turned out that she always knew what Ves wanted, but that the conditions weren't right in the past.

First, Goldie was a lot younger and weaker in the past. There weren't as many people connected to the Larkinson Network and she had barely developed her abilities at the time.

Second, the method also imposed serious requirements on the part of the mech pilots. They had to adopt the right mindset in order to enable the knowledge transfer.

Third, Ves had been too focused on segmenting spiritual networks into different categories. Kinship networks were meant to instill loyalty and watch out for betrayal. Battle networks were solely designed to enable a short but extremely powerful boost in combat.

He failed to anticipate that a group like the Avatars was able to achieve an effect that was similar to that of a battle network but to a lesser degree.

As Ves observed the empowered Larkinson mechs rolling over the capable but uninspiring Diyast mechs, he clearly felt that the Larkinsons that had borrowed the power of the Golden Cat could have sustained this state a lot longer!

This was nothing less than revolutionary in his eyes. Wasn't this what Ves had been trying to achieve? Though the activation of a battle network could achieve a drastic impact in battle, the downside was that it lasted too short and the power might be too exaggerated for certain battles.

A lesser but more lasting empowerment like the current state of Avatar mech pilots was much more practical in most battles! Ves could already observe from various pieces of data that the mech pilots did not look significantly drained after the experience.

They could still put up a decent fight even after they strained their minds earlier! This was much different from the aftermath of activating a battle formation!

Ves was eager to explore this new facet of spiritual battle methods, but this was not the time for him to indulge in spiritual engineering.

After smashing the Diyast Family's aerial mech force, the enemy did not launch any follow-up attacks. It was already difficult and expensive to form a secret mech force on a quiet paradise planet with no inherent industrial infrastructure. Their backers might be generous, but it was a bit too far-fetched for this secret remnant to receive enough resources and manpower to build up an entire mech regiment!

It became a lot more trouble than usual for the Larkinson mechs and ships that had descended into the atmosphere to return to the expeditionary fleet.

The loss of several combat carriers and the crippling of several more meant that the Larkinsons had less space for mechs.

On the other hand, the amphibian black mechs and the aerial Diyast mechs also exacted a serious toll on the Avatar and Vandal mechs. Many expensive machines had sunk to the bottom of Trieden II's warm and deep oceans.

Salvaging the wrecks was out of the question. As far as Ves was aware of, the entire Larkinson fleet did not carry a single aquatic mech.

However, a quick search revealed that the Graveyard actually carried a few specialized vessels that could theoretically retrieve the broken mechs and debris from the depths.

There were way too few of them though. It would take weeks to fish out all of those broken Bright Warrior and Ferocious Piranha mechs and that was way too troublesome for his liking.

"Don't bother with picking up our wrecks." Ves told General Verle. "I want to leave this stupid star system as soon as possible."

"Are you sure, sir? The broken hardware we're about to leave behind is very valuable. We'll also risk exposing the designs of the Bright Warrior IB and Ferocious Piranha IB."

Ves winced when he heard the latter. General Verle raised a valid strategic concern. One of the ways that mechs gained an edge on the battlefield was by hiding their strengths and weaknesses.

However, as long as someone fished out enough broken wrecks and reconstructed them, it became possible for others to make detailed analyses about their designs.

This was no different from revealing the blueprints of the Bright Warrior and Ferocious Piranha to the public!

Even if the people who studied his mechs didn't dump the data on the galactic net, they could probably trade it to the Larkinson Clan's enemies like the Friday Coalition for a good price.

Ves looked grim but decided to stick with his current decision. "Nothing can remain hidden forever. We have already deployed these two mech models enough times for observers to glean enough clues about their performance. Even if our enemies can obtain a lot more details about those two mechs, it's not as if this is a crippling disadvantage. I bet the Friday Coalition has long analyzed our Valkyrie mech designs to death, but that hasn't stopped the momentum of this product line. Besides, we'll be replacing those models with updated versions at some point in the future, so we won't have to worry about this problem forever."

The expeditionary fleet had to keep moving. The Larkinsons had already stirred up trouble in the Grand Loxic Republic by deploying so many mechs for battle and intervening in a local power struggle. The longer his fleet remained in the state, the greater the chance that the Loxians would come and drag him even deeper into the local quagmire!

The Purnesse Family might be happy to settle some old scores, but the Larkinsons couldn't care less about these squabbles!

"Bring the Purnesse Family aboard the Spirit of Bentheim as soon as possible." Ves spoke as he stood up from his chair. "We need to receive them as quickly as possible while they are still in shock. Those pampered Purnessers look as if their entire mentalities have been subverted. If we wait for them to regain their mental balance, they'll be much more composed and much more difficult to influence. We need to strike while the iron is hot and make an indelible impression on those snobs."

Ves was not ignorant of their behavior. As soon as they evacuated from the Violet Estates and entered one of the combat carriers of his fleet, he directed some of his attention on monitoring the folk that would soon play an important role in the Larkinson Clan.

It turned out the Purnessers were a lot more elitist than he expected. They were much like the Tovars of the Bright Republic. Ves did not want these Purnessers to maintain their picky attitudes once they joined the Larkinson Clan.

From the beginning, Ves had done his best to avoid his clan developing in the direction of the Tovar Family and other cold-hearted organizations. He had made many policy decisions that served to reduce the power distance between the clansmen.

A normal rank-and-file member should always be able to speak to a patriarch like him on a normal if respectful basis.

If the Purnessers were allowed to impose their stamp on the Larkinson Clan, his clansmen risked becoming stiffer when they interacted with each other!

This did not align with his vision of the Larkinson Clan as a giant brotherhood. Every Larkinson must be able to extend a sufficient amount of trust to each other. If this simple rule no longer held true, the Larkinson Clan would pretty much be dead in his eyes!

When Ves left the bridge of his flagship, Lucky silently floated off the armrest and followed suit. Calabast also chose to accompany him as the issues surrounding the Purnesse Family also merited her attention!

As they walked through the corridors, Calabast voiced another warning.

"The people we're about to receive are different from our other recruits." She started. "The thousands of people that have previously flocked to our banner are mostly young, adventurous, eager to make a new start and impressionable. Their backgrounds vary, but the overwhelming majority of clansmen originate from the middle class."

Ves nodded in understanding.

There were still plenty of clansmen who came from humble backgrounds, but those were very rare. The clan maintained a high recruiting standard, which meant that those with less means were usually unable to afford the education required to make them useful and desirable enough to get any further.

On the other hand, the number of upper class people in the clan was small as well. Most scions were very comfortable in their current lives and had no desire to abandon all of their privilege to go on a risky adventure to the Red Ocean.

In a way, the Purnessers also fell into this category. Despite almost facing annihilation, these sorry bastards still held themselves up as high born leaders and aristocrats. Ves had no doubt that if the Grand Loxic Republic adopted a feudal governing system, the Purnesse Family would have transitioned into Purnesse House!

"We need to make it clear that the Purnessers need to get off their high horses and sincerely embrace our culture and values." He stated. "Do you have any good ideas?"

"That is not an easy demand, you know." Calabast smiled wrily. "I know their type. Their arrogance is rooted in their bones. They're similar to the batch of MTA mech pilots you've picked up. Their privileged upbringing and superior capabilities instill them with a sense of pride and confidence that is difficult to erode. The only way to reform them is if you break their old mentalities entirely. This… is not advisable, though."