The Mech Touch

Ves had leveraged Blinky's design network enough times to grow familiar with its effects and limitations.

As far as he was aware, the fragment of Aisling Curver's design philosophy that he incorporated into Blinky's composition was responsible for this effect. No other ingredient could explain how the spiritual cat was able to tie the minds of different mech designers together as if he had formed an alternative version of Master Huron's neural network.

Of course, due to his spiritual nature, the network that Blinky formed had more in common with the other spiritual networks that Ves created. The connections were purely spiritual in nature and their range was limited.

What distinguished the design network from the other variety of spiritual networks was how well it transferred mech design-related thoughts, emotions, instincts, sentiments and so on. A normal spiritual network did not form connections that were as deep.

Ves theorized that the fact that this capability originated from a Journeyman Mech Designer caused the design network to excel in sharing mech design insights. The benefits that everyone in the network gained while it was active was so beneficial that it was practically a game changer to the Design Department!

"What would it be like if I merged Master Huron's fragment into Blinky?"

For a moment, an intense greed overtook his mind. He felt tempted to turn his fleet around and head straight back to the Komodo Star Sector, hunt down Master Huron and harvest his potent spirituality to upgrade Blinky's design networking capabilities to a higher level!

Ves quickly shook his head. "Damn, what am I thinking?! This is not the time for me to indulge in unrealistic fantasies."

He purged this silly idea from his mind right away. Master Mech Designers were immensely powerful and would never put themselves in a position where he and his clan could hunt one down. Even if he caught one, the repercussions of doing so were so massive that the mech industry would probably brand him a pariah!

Besides, his fleet had already crossed over into the Bardo Star Cluster and was well on its way to the nearest beyonder gate. It would be an enormous waste of time for him to turn around.

Though Ves was attracted by the potential of design networks, it was not a substitute to being good at mech design. Its effectiveness was only as good as the strongest mech designer connected to the network. Developing his own ability and overcoming challenges by himself was the most reliable way for him to advance to Master.

That said, forming a design network conveyed a lot of advantages beyond the moment. Ves felt as if he was exchanging insights whenever he formed a network with him and his peers. By gaining a more direct first-hand perspective on how they approach the same craft, Ves and the others were able to broaden their vision and understood their own position relative to other mech designers.

The problem of contamination was also much less of a concern when the design network only encompassed higher-ranking mech designers. Journeymen would have never been able to reach their current height if they did not strongly believe in their own ambitions and goals.

All in all, Ves felt compelled to employ his design network this time. Several hours had passed since the start of the fabrication run and already the Journeymen were bumping into numerous difficult issues.

Everyone underestimated the complexity of fabricating powerful expert mech components. The parts which incorporated resonating exotics were especially difficult to make because they combined several highly-energetic materials together that tended to interact in unpredictable ways when not handled with precision.

Of the four mech designers, only Gloriana possessed the knowledge, precision and intuition to fabricate the parts that incorporated the substance known as Perfidious Steel.

The reasons for this were twofold. Aside from the aforementioned energy interactions, the inherent attributes of this artificial alloy also interfered with the operation of their instruments.

Even if Perfidious Steel was in its dormant and inactive state, it could still cause a sensor to misjudge the size or position of a portion of this material. It was already bad enough if this happened once, but if the distorted readings kept resulting in more misalignments and misshapen parts, then the overall integrity of a larger system would definitely take a considerable hit!

As soon as he settled on this decision, he carefully approached Gloriana and waited until she was done with fabricating a particularly delicate subcomponent.

"Ves, you're supposed to be reshaping the Unending alloy plates that we have cannibalized from the Piranha Prime. What are you doing here?"

He did not answer immediately. Instead, he decided to convey his intent by summoning Blinky from his mind.

Mrow~

The purple companion spirit floated in midair and glanced curiously around him. His black-tipped tail flicked with curiosity as the cat became immersed with all of the mech-related activity taking place in the workshop.

Gloriana only took an instant to comprehend her husband's message. Her eyes shone with eagerness as she reached out and carefully petted Blinky's head.

Mrow mrow~

"Can Blinky truly facilitate our work during our fabrication run?"

Ves nodded. "Yes, but you already know about his limitations. He can maintain this state for two hours or so. Maybe it is longer now that he doesn't have to form so many connections, but eventually the exertion takes a toll on his mental fortitude. He will need at least twice as much time to rest and recuperate."

A boost that lasted two hours could be extremely helpful, but Gloriana obviously wanted to enjoy this state longer.

"Is there any way for you to shorten this recovery period? Have you tried feeding him with more energy?"

"It's not that simple. Blinky is not a machine that you can refuel whenever he runs out of juice. He's a living construct and his abilities wear him down on a mental level."

This was one of the downsides to working with living constructs as opposed to lifeless and static ones. The latter only existed to serve their purpose and nothing more. Since normal machines weren't sentient and didn't think, mental exhaustion simply didn't apply to them. Instead, their wear and tear came in different forms.

Eventually, Gloriana had no choice but to abide by Blinky's restrictions. The wheels already started to turn in her head and she briefly interrupted her work in order to pull out the work schedule and shift around the work tasks.

It took several minutes for her to hastily move around the different tasks so that the more difficult ones were all concentrated in two-hour blocks while the less critical ones were shoved in the longer four-hour blocks.

It would have been a lot harder for her to reconfigure the schedule if she insisted on keeping to her original detailed schedule. Fortunately, Ves succeeded in persuading her to exhibit more flexibility.

"There!" Gloriana grinned. "That should do. Let's start right away!"

The pair briefly notified Ketis and Juliet of the changes before they allowed Blinky to perform his magic.

His glowing eyes shone brighter as his tail poked through the heads of the four Journeymen. As soon as they became connected to Blinky's newly-activated design network, they immediately felt more attuned with each other.

Now that the network was no longer burdened by the presence of over fifty assistant mech designers, the four Journeymen were able to connect to each other with less dispersion and more attention.

The four mech designers all smiled at each other as their thoughts and emotions partially blended with each other. They each donated a small but noticeable portion of their greatest advantages to each other.

Ves shared his sensitivity to life and his unique perspective towards the living aspects of the Disruptor Project.

Juliet shared her love for speed and her affinity for the mobility aspects of the expert mech they were trying to create.

Ketis shared her dedication to swordsmanship and her will to hone the expert light skirmisher into a swift and sharp weapon.

As for Gloriana, she contributed the most important factor that was relevant to the fabrication run. She not only shared her sensitivity towards flaws, but also passed on her passion for perfection.

These two elements were exactly what the other three needed to handle their assignments better. The difference it made was very obvious as soon as the network came online.

The parts they produced at their respective stations increased in quality and exhibited much fewer issues.

Their pace sped up as they no longer had to pause so long in order to figure out how to overcome a difficult issue. The solutions to these small but technically-challenging issues became a lot clearer as the three were able to leverage Gloriana's detail-oriented mind.

The clear improvement and continuous successes lifted everyone's morale and caused them to adopt a wonderful mood. Everyone's minds gradually shifted into an indescribable zone where they were able to employ total concentration and access a portion of each other's talents whenever it was helpful.

Since Gloriana's perspective was the most useful in a fabrication run as difficult as this, she came under greater burden than the others.

However, she seemed immune to the pressure. The added gains they made along with the reduction in problems was like music to her ears. She practically floated on clouds as she rapidly produced precision part after precision part at close to perfect quality.

Unfortunately, the party gradually came to an end.

In order to prevent the Journeymen from crashing from their highs, Blinky slowly shrank the connections over several minutes until it faded away entirely. His glowing eyes and streaking star patterns had dimmed considerably at this time, which showed that he was not ready to activate his design network anytime soon.

Mrow…

Ves reached out to pet Blinky's head and back. "Good job, Blinky. Take a good rest and devour as much spiritual energy as you need. We will need your help again in four hours."

Mrow mrow…

Though four hours was not enough for Blinky to enjoy a full rest, he was still a tough kitty.

The mech designers fell into a lower mood after they no longer enjoyed the previous benefits. Gloriana had become a little duller and the output of the other three Journeyman declined in quality.

However, this drop did not bring the overall quality levels back to the old level. Ves, Ketis and Juliet had immersed themselves in Gloriana's perspective long enough to learn some of her tricks and knowledge.

Ves was already accustomed to this due to possessing a fragment of Gloriana and collaborating with his wife on a daily basis, so his output did not vary as much.

The two other women exhibited much greater lingering differences. Juliet's permanent improvement was rather moderate as her Hexer education had already made her diligent.

Ketis exhibited the most improvement. She had been a Journeyman for the least amount of time out of the four. Her approach to mech design was also a lot sloppier than the rest. The opportunity to see her work from a completely different perspective, if only partially, had taught her so much that she couldn't go back to working in ignorance!

"Now that all of these flaws are so obvious, I can't ignore them anymore." She muttered with a frown.

One the one hand, this new awareness of hers slowed her down and forced her to revisit some of her old work.

On the other hand, the quality of her weapon components were becoming noticeably better, which would doubtlessly increase the performance of the expert mech once it was completed!

Gloriana soon perked up again when she observed all of this. She turned to Ves with a hungry expression.

"Ves?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Give me a cat like Blinky. Since you have managed to make such an amazing cat once, you can make one again! Be sure to make it female this time!"

"Uhm, let's talk about this later. We still have a project to complete."

Clixie had been watching the mech designers at work while lying next to Lucky. As soon as she heard Gloriana's request, she became distressed again.

"Miaow!"