The Mech Touch

The Amaranto's performance significantly exceeded everyone's expectations.

Ves, Gloriana and many other Larkinsons who were able to witness the new expert mech in action had become incredibly jubilant about their accomplishment!

Not only was the Amaranto able to plug an important gap in the Larkinson Army's lineup, it also showed a glimpse of the future of expert mechs that possessed prime mech capabilities.

The Journeymen all took a well-deserved rest as soon as the fleet transitioned into FTL. They went to bed knowing that they had absolutely created a mech that they could take pride in for the rest of their lives.

In the next morning, Ves woke up feeling more warm and comfortable than ever. His wife pressed her body against hers, allowing him to feel her body warmth.

She was still in slumber though he knew it wouldn't take long for her to wake up as well.

"Miaow."

Clixie was already sitting beside Gloriana's pillow. As a cat, she possessed a different sleeping cycle, which was an important aspect in allowing her to stay on guard at night.

"Did Gloriana sleep well?"

"Miaow."

"That's good to hear."

One of his hands reached down to touch his wife's belly. At this stage of the pregnancy, a small bump had already formed, though it would take a bit more time for it to gain enough definition to be visible no matter what clothes she wore.

This was the first time that he was truly able to inspect his unborn daughter after all of the events that had happened during the start of the fabrication session. He never expected the Superior Mother to just descend and bless her future granddaughter right when the Journeymen had just embarked on one of their most important and critical endeavors.

The fact that Gloriana and the others were able to take advantage of this phenomenon to create their strongest and most exceptional mech yet was a massive bonus!

"Heh, it's all thanks to you, little girl." Ves grinned as he softly rubbed his palm across his wife's belly.

If Gloriana never decided to become pregnant at this period, the Superior Mother wouldn't have been inclined to show up. How the Amaranto would end up in that case was anyone's guess.

"Perhaps we would have gotten close enough regardless."

Ves wasn't complaining about the current outcome. Not only was he potentially able to save one of his precious gems, his daughter also gained a substantial boost!

When Ves finally inspected his daughter with his spiritual senses, he noticed that the fetus already exuded a considerably stronger presence. Her spirituality remained pristine, but it had gained a lot of firmness. This was a crucial improvement that would make her much less susceptible to external influences.

"That's not the biggest change, though."

He recalled that the Superior Mother poured most of her efforts into his unborn daughter's body. When Ves swept his senses across the fetus, he was only able to perceive a limited degree of changes.

His baby's body felt a bit more substantial to his senses. Yet no matter how many times he inspected his daughter's cells, he wasn't able to find any differences.

What did the Superior Mother do? What was her goal?

Ves seriously doubted that she went through all of that effort just to give her unborn granddaughter a pat in the back. There had to be more behind this move that he was not able to figure out. He needed to make a lot more progress in spiritual engineering before he was able to discern the exact changes.

"She's a lot better than before." He instinctively judged.

He did not feel that anything was amiss as he scanned his baby. If this wasn't the case, he would have forcibly interrupted the Superior Mother's ritual no matter how well-meaning it seemed!

"Ves…" His wife opened her eyes and smiled warmly at him. She placed her hand above his own. "Our daughter is going to be so strong one day. Not even I received so many blessings. With the Superior Mother as her grandparent, our baby will enjoy all of the care and attention she needs to become great. Maybe even greater than us, hihi!"

They spent over ten minutes wondering about their future daughter before they left their bed and readied themselves for their day.

The big project was already complete, but there were more projects that needed to be completed. The Amaranto also had to be checked over. Though the chances that a part had prematurely worn out was low, they needed to do their due diligence. They also had to inspect and scan every part of their latest work in order to see how exceptional it had become after it had become a masterwork.

However, before the couple could exit their grand stateroom and head over to the design lab, their bodies suddenly dematerialized from existence.

"Miaow!"

Clixie immediately panicked as she saw Ves and Gloriana disappear from view.

"ALARM!"

Their guards acted as if someone just poked them in their eyes! However, before they could do anything further, a small card materialized.

Clixie caught it before it fell to the ground and studied it with a confused expression.

"Miaow?"

Nitaa's armored form stepped forward and took the card. Her expression grew grim as she apparently received an answer of what had happened.

"It's the MTA."

She did not entirely believe the card, but from what had happened, the powerful organization had somehow managed to teleport a pair of humans while the Spirit of Bentheim was still traveling in FTL!

The level of sophistication that such an act required was unattainable to any of the local states in the Yeina and Bardo Star Clusters. Only the Big Two were powerful enough to accomplish such a feat.

Despite the fact that the MTA discretely informed the Larkinson Clan of their actions, the clansmen nonetheless began to sweep their ships. Who knew whether the MTA actually took action?

While the Larkinsons were scouring through all of their ships, the people who were teleported by surprise re-emerged in a completely different compartment.

Ves normally would have panicked and summoned the Amastendira if he was teleported in this fashion, but he carefully maintained his composure and observed what was happening.

He expected the MTA to come knocking sooner or later. Though he did not predict the mechers would make a huge power play by showing that they could take him from his ship during FTL travel anytime they liked, this action completely fit their profile.

"Ves." Ketis called from the side.

She and Juliet had been summoned as well. This made it more than clear that they were definitely here because of their latest accomplishment.

"Larkinsons. It appears that I have been forced to visit you once again." A very familiar voice called from the side.

Master Willix approached once again. She looked quite appreciative of the four Journeymen, but paid special attention to Ves and Gloriana.

"I apologise for bringing you aboard this battleship in this fashion, but I needed to brief you before anyone else had the opportunity to reach you. What you have accomplished is a great feat that will ring across the mech industry, but it will also lead to severe disruptions to your lives."

"How so, ma'am?" Ves carefully asked.

"I will explain that and more to you in a moment."

Before he could ask another question, Master Willix snapped her fingers, causing everyone to teleport out of the empty chamber and straight into a mech workshop!

When Ves got his bearings, he curiously scanned the entire workshop. Its clean metal walls were just as bare as before, and there were no exposed tool racks or traditional production equipment that he could see. He only managed to spot a few huge but completely unfamiliar machines that reminded him of a lot of materialization technology.

They weren't here in order to fabricate a mech. They were here so that Master Willix could reunite them with Amaranto.

"You guys teleported an entire mech?" Ves asked in a nervous tone of voice.

"Teleportation technology is much more versatile than you think." Master Willix answered. "Under the right circumstances, we can teleport people, gasses, mechs, ship components and even antimatter bombs."

Yikes! Ves could immediately recognize how much terror these actions could sow, particularly if the MTA had already shown the ability to perform teleportation while traveling through FTL!

"You don't need to worry about that." Master Willix said. "Teleportation technology becomes more ubiquitous at the first-class level, but you will also begin to encounter anti-teleportation measures. Also, the teleportation that we have performed is extremely difficult to perform by anyone except for us and the CFA. Our battleship actually had to approach extremely close to your factory ship during FTL travel in order to lock your coordinates, and that is not something that anyone can do. Outside of FTL, just make sure that no foreign ship gets close. If that cannot be prevented, then your ship should activate every possible shield generator. The energy shields they project naturally produce enough disturbances to make it substantially more difficult to teleport anything in or out."

This was a valuable lesson. Ves suspected that Master Willix deliberately showed off the MTA's teleportation tech in order to make him aware of the potential dangers.

"What should I do if that is not enough?"

"If you truly wish to guard yourselves ahead of time, it shouldn't be too much of a challenge to purchase the latter in exchange for a large amount of credits or a more modest sum of merits."

Ves inwardly sighed in relief. As long as it could be bought, he would not have to worry too much.

He directed his view back to his own creation. The dormant red masterwork expert mech already exuded a strong presence without even doing anything. Even Master Willix couldn't help but look admiringly at the great creation.

There was one nagging uncertainty, though.

"Will you be taking my mech away?" He hesitantly asked.

He didn't forget that the MTA expressed a strong interest in the Little Angel. The masterwork mech that Ves and his wife had created long ago had already fallen into the Association's hands

"We won't." Willix immediately reassured him. "You can trust us on that. There are multiple reasons why we will not take it away. First, it is disrespectful to take a masterwork version of an expert mech away from its original owner because it is meant to serve a specific mech pilot. Mass market models are designed to serve a wide variety of people. This makes it easy to adapt the masterwork versions of these mechs for another purpose. Not so for your Amaranto."

That made a lot of sense. Ves also gathered an important clue from this answer. The MTA was evidently making use of the masterwork mechs in an unknown fashion.

"Second, it is disrespectful towards you, the creators. Your status and importance is no longer as trivial as they were in the past. I will be explaining this to you later, but with this accomplishment, you have finally entered the true galactic community."

That sounded both good and bad. Ves did not like the implications of this as he was largely relying on his relative lack of fame to coast by without attracting any dangerous attention.

"Third, if we frequently take masterwork mechs away from their creators or owners without their consent, no one will make them anymore. Creating a masterwork of any mech is an event that should be pursued by every mech designer. Succeeding in making one should not make you feel as if you are punished. That is the exact opposite of what should be the case. The Association has always insisted that great creators like you should be rewarded for your success."

Ves truly relaxed at this time. This answer made the most sense. The MTA was a farsighted organization and always tried to keep the mech industry as productive and innovative as possible. While it restricted technologies and messed with mech pilots on a regular basis, their overall goals had never changed.