The Mech Touch

A new hero expert mech was being born today. Inside a personal workshop located deep inside the Spirit of Bentheim, a ritual that combined precision engineering, heavy engineering and love had almost reached its conclusion.

After seven days of brisk and purposeful work, four Journeymen and a single expert pilot had continuously poured their efforts into making the final and perhaps ultimate machine of this design round.

For the mech designers, their time in the design labs and the mech workshops in the past year provided them with many challenges and delights.

Each of them had made substantial gains as they successively worked on the six projects. Their approach had matured, their toolboxes held more techniques and they became more adept at designing high-performance machines.

More than that, the four Journeymen also progressed their core design philosophies and developed a better understanding of the mechs they truly wished to design.

Everyone was already satisfied. Each of them would be able to translate their recent improvements into substantially better results when they embarked on their next mech design projects.

That said, their job was not yet done. They still had to assemble the final pieces into place. They also had to make sure that the parts that had already been added to the mech frame were sound and functional.

All of this demanded the undivided attention of every mech designer. They no longer swapped as many thoughts and ideas to each other as they had already completed the most challenging and influential phase of the fabrication run.

What they were doing now was more akin to consolidating their previous efforts than adding more value to the mech. It was too difficult to come up with a new way to make the end product a little stronger during this phase.

That did not stop Venerable Joshua from thinking, though.

At this moment, he still resonated with Blinky as the companion spirit roamed throughout the incomplete mech frame. Even if it appeared that this move hardly made any difference at this point, Joshua was still able to familiarize himself with the soon-to-be-completed Chimera Project in advance.

What struck him a lot about the hero expert mech was how he witnessed its creation from beginning to end.

Due to participating in the design network, Venerable Joshua became awed and excited at how closely he was involved in the birth of his own expert mech.

This was a machine that was truly designed and made for him from the ground up. It was a mech that not only embodied life to Joshua, but was also filled with the love and affection of its creators.

From Ketis, Joshua received the most intimate form of love.

From Ves, Joshua received the goodwill of the greatest mech designer.

From the other two Journeymen, Joshua received the trust and expectation of the Larkinsons who invested him with power to fight on their behalf.

Whether their motivations were rational or emotional, Venerable Joshua became continually touched by all of the effort that everyone put in a single machine.

The four Journeymen were under no obligation to go through this extent to fabricate the Chimera Project.

Yet each of them did so without any hesitation. As a rule, any mech designer always sought to serve their clients as best as possible, but it was difficult to uphold this ideal in practice.

There were many mech designers who did not provide as much service to individual clients, but the mech designers of the Larkinson Clan were different.

Everything was personal. While every Larkinson was used to treating their fellow clansmen as family, Joshua received more favor than others.

Though he was expected to repay all of the gifts and attention he received by performing well in battle, this did not require any effort on his part.

As an expert pilot and a soldier of the Larkinson Clan, he was already committed to doing his absolute best to protect his fellow clansmen and destroy all of their enemies!

This realization caused him to build a small degree of frustration in his heart. He knew more than any other mech pilot how much the mech designers worked to elevate the Chimera Project.

Compared to all of the effort and ingenuity that Ves and the others squeezed out of their minds, Joshua just sat around most of the time while passively resonating with Blinky.

Over the past several days, he vaguely gained the notion that he could do something on his own initiative.

This was a strange impulse, so strange in fact that he had buried it deep in his heart. He felt ashamed and uncertain about the notion that he could contribute to the formation of a mech by himself.

He was not a mech designer and didn't know 1 percent of all of the knowledge required to design a machine.

Others would think that he was being arrogant to the extreme for thinking that he could do better than any other mech designer!

Yet the more the Chimera Project reached completion, the more he felt that the expert mech was missing that final touch that could truly make it right for him. Joshua did not doubt the competences of the people who worked on its design, but none of them understood life and expert pilots like himself.

Not even Ves, who possessed the greatest understanding of his powers and capabilities, understood all of his facets.

Though Joshua loved all of Ves' living mechs, that didn't mean he was content to remain as a passive consumer.

He already piloted so many living mechs designed for other people in mind. Each of them had their merits, but ultimately possessed elements that prevented Joshua from embracing them in their totality.

He wanted to be more selfish this time. The mech designed exclusively for his use must not have any shortcomings that prevented him from piloting it as seamlessly as possible!

With that thought in mind, Joshua became increasingly more committed to his planned course of action.

Several strange thoughts flowed through his mind. Venerable Joshua took a lot of inspiration from the mindset and the methods employed by Ves and Ketis before coming up with his own plan of action.

He patiently waited while the mech designers completed the Chimera Project at their own pace. When the expert mech had reached its final juncture, Ves had slowly entered the cockpit in order to install the commemorative plate and add the final elements to the interior.

At this point, Ves could already tell the final result of all of his efforts and the efforts of his colleagues.

His worst fears had come true. After turning the Shield of Samar into a masterwork expert mech, Ves and the others had emptied their accumulation and started off this fabrication run at a lower starting point.

He didn't think that this was an insurmountable problem. Even if he started this race in the rear, he just had to work harder to get to the front.

Yet despite fabricating an innovative new expert mech and implementing several new solutions developed on the spot, the overall quality of the expert mech fell short of his hopes.

It didn't matter that the Chimera Project embodied its three core concepts to a higher degree than the other expert mechs.

It didn't matter that he found a new way to increase the attunement between his expert mech and its expert pilot.

It didn't matter that Ketis sacrificed a part of herself to empower the Chimera Project's mech sword.

All of that hard work just wasn't enough to overcome the invisible barriers that prevented Journeymen like himself from climbing up the second rung of the craftsmanship ladder.

Ves tried his best to suppress his growing sense of disappointment and expectation. All of his emotional commitment into the Chimera Project made it hurt all the more that he had failed to accomplish his ambitious target.

Yet regarding the expert mech as a disappointment was unprofessional and a disservice to both the machine and its user.

The Chimera Project was already strong and valuable in its own right. Ves stood by all of the design choices he made and did not regret completing it last.

In the end, the cold hard truth was that he was simply too young, too inexperienced and too ambitious to be expecting another masterwork expert mech.

"I'm too weak." He summed up with a sigh.

In the future, this challenge probably wouldn't inconvenience him anymore. Whether it took fifty years or a hundred years, Ves was certain that he would be able to climb the second rung of the ladder as easily as climbing other steps!

He was far from reaching this point, though.

As a result, the Chimera Project he poured his heart and soul into became an expert mech that was merely 'good' in terms of quality.

Its quality wasn't even high enough for one of Lucky's gems to be able to make up the difference!

In the end, it didn't even matter that his gem cat provided him with a batch of five new gems that he couldn't even identify. It turned out that he wouldn't have to play the gem lottery after all this time.

For a moment, Ves loathed the expert mech he completed. Why couldn't it have been good enough to get close to the masterwork threshold? Why did all of his extra effort failed to make a substantial difference?

"I shouldn't feel this way towards an expert mech that is excellent in its own right." Ves reminded himself.

He had no doubt that the Chimera Project would perform well in battle, but it still lacked that extra factor that allowed the Amaranto and the Shield of Samar stand out from its peers.

Venerable Joshua would be fine for the most part, but if his journey to ace pilot would doubtlessly be more arduous than Ves wished.

The only way to remedy this problem was to design another expert mech or upgrade his existing one, but these measures only gave him a chance.

"Damn."

As Ves put the final part in place, he sank in the piloting chair and tried to cleanse his thoughts.

"Huh?"

Ves looked up in surprise as he sensed the approached of a familiar figure. Venerable Joshua emerged from above and slipped inside the open entrance of the cockpit with a single, fluid maneuver.

"Sir." Joshua nodded confidently at the mech designer.

"What are you doing here? It's not time yet for you to test run this freshly-made machine."

"The Chimera Project isn't finished. Not in my eyes. It's not too late for us to perform an extra step."

Ves grew puzzled. He could sense an aura of confidence and purpose from the expert pilot. It was as if the failure to turn the Chimera Project into a masterwork did not affect him in the slightest!

"What… do you have in mind?"

"I need your cooperation for this. Can you call over Blinky?"

"Certainly."

Mrow.

The cat quickly floated back to Ves' side. The Star Cat looked puzzled why he was needed. Hadn't they just completed the Chimera Project?

Joshua didn't explain anything further. He looked at Blinky while resonating with the companion spirit to a stronger degree than he had ever done before!

Mrow?!

As the spiritual cat became surrounded by an increasingly brighter green corona, Joshua suddenly drew a foldable combat knife from his belt.

"Wait, what are you doing with that blade?"

"Trust me, sir."

Joshua resolutely cut the palm of his hand, inflicting a bleeding gash that already splattered the cockpit floor with drops of red!

"Are you crazy?!"

The expert pilot did not listen to Ves. Instead, Joshua used his bleeding hand to grasp onto Ves' wrist before decisively making another cut on the mech designer's palm!

"Ahhh! That hurts!"

Joshua moved quickly and gripped Ves' bleeding hand with his own one. The expert pilot proceed to drag over their bloody 'handshake' in the middle of Blinky's intangible body while it was affected by resonance!

"The Chimera Project is our child." The expert pilot claimed as he conveyed a powerful will through his eyes! "Let us baptize it in blood and celebrate its completion!"

Something amazing happened that caused Ves to choke his calls for help.

The blood that leaked between their palms seemed to gain power. As the cockpit floor became increasingly marked by fluids, the energies of life carried by the falling drops began to transfer to the entire mech.

Further inside the machine, the energies transferred seemed to draw towards the parts that Ves had recently made while under the influence of Joshua's resonance.

As soon as these parts received a jolt, they began to glow and resonate with Venerable Joshua!

Ves looked amazed as the expert pilot expanded his force of will and channeled as much of his power as possible.

This was difficult on Joshua as he wasn't actually interfacing with the Chimera Project. Yet despite not activating the expert mech, he forced himself to reach out to the mech that was already designed to embrace his will and found a growing response!

"It's truly come alive this time." Joshua grinned.

Ves became gobsmacked as the living expert mech underwent an unexplainable change that condensed much of its living elements into a cohesive, living consciousness.

For a moment, he felt as if he had come in touch with the Quint. Yet the Chimera Project's living qualities were a bit different. They were… stronger and more complete despite not experiencing any growth over time!

Even as the quality of the Chimera Project rose as a consequence of this mysterious improvement, the newly-birthed consciousness conveyed its very first word.

Alive.