The Mech Touch

In a single meeting, Ketis made a bunch of excellent suggestions to Ves.

First, he should try to involve others in his secret research projects. Even if they didn't have his specialty or weren't able to contribute as much, just the fact that they were different people with different perspectives could bring in a lot of refreshing new ideas!

Second, Ketis suggested that Lufa's different glow variations could provide crucial assistance to expert pilots who were stuck in a rut or failed to overcome their bottlenecks.

In the past, people like this either needed to seek out battle or had to rely on factors outside of their control to keep moving forward.

No expert pilot could possibly enjoy a smooth ride to ace pilot. The fact that the latter were much rarer spoke much about how difficult it must be for demigods to shed even greater parts of their mortality.

Since their strength was based on a mental concept like willpower, any solutions that could directly affect their mentalities might have a direct impact on their strength levels!

However, it was Ketis' third suggestion that truly floored Ves.

She actually suggested that Ves should expose more ordinary people to the Aspects of Lufa!

"You've been trying to find a method to increase the rate of breakthroughs for such a long time, right?" Ketis prodded him. "Why have you not enlisted the help of those who have already completed this journey? Whether it is myself or a genuine expert pilot such as my husband, we have first-hand experience of what people must go through to reach a new level of strength! We are much more capable of guiding weaker pilots into finding their strengths! Though I don't expect this proposal to produce hundreds of expert candidates and expert pilots in an instant, it can be part of a comprehensive set of solutions that can increase the rate of breakthroughs in our clan!"

Ves looked shocked at Ketis!

"Are you being serious? You are suggesting that we put our own clansmen at risk by exposing them to the Aspect of Transcendence, an object that has created plenty of fatalities over the course of my attempts to harness its power."

"That's because you are an idiot by trying to do everything yourself, Ves. I admit that you are brilliant in several areas. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't impressed by your ability to design living mechs. That doesn't mean I respect your ability to design swordsman mechs or your attempts to create a method that increases breakthroughs. You need to work with people who know better or at least offer a second opinion that is different from your own. The reason why you failed to make good use of the Aspect of Transcendence so far is because you kept tunnel visioning by performing the same experiment over and over again while expecting a different result."

"That's not true! While I did create a lot of failures, I was slowly getting closer to my goal! I even managed to derive a few lessons from the few success cases that emerged!" Ves defended himself!

"Your progress is too slow and you spent way too much time on diversions." Ketis judged. "That is also what I am trying to accomplish with my suggestions. There are many mech pilots that have gotten stuck after running into bottlenecks. According to my own understanding, each of them spend way too much time on figuring out how to get past their blockage. They can spend years if not decades of their life pursuing many fruitless diversions. With the help of your Aspects, all of these desperate mech pilots do not have to waste so much time anymore. They can leverage the Aspects of Lufa to understand their true selves and find inner peace. Breaking past their bottlenecks will become a lot easier at that point."

She made so many valid suggestions that Ves was beginning to doubt himself as a researcher. The swordsman mech designer sounded as if she was the one who developed the Aspects of Lufa!

"Why do you care so much, Ketis?"

"Isn't it obvious? I want to strengthen our clan. We are still too weak compared to all of the alien forces and powerful human organizations. We need to pursue strength in as many directions as possible. Whether it is producing new expert pilots or helping our current ones avoid time-consuming diversions, I think we should not let off this opportunity to speed up our growth!"

Of course, Ketis had a personal interest in this particular development. Finding better uses for the Aspects of Lufa directly facilitated her progression as a swordmaster. She had already used them once in order to evolve Sharpie to a human form, so she could probably use this method to make further progress in the future!

Her ideas truly gave Ves a vastly different cognition about the organic statues he neglected. Even without performing any new experiments, he already thought of many new ways to make good use of their properties!

This was the benefit of having a second opinion at hand. Few people were more qualified to assist him than Ketis. She was not only a mech designer who was familiar with glows and living products, but also possessed first-hand experience on the breakthroughs that Ves tried to produce!

At this point, Ves no longer harbored any resentment towards Ketis for breaking into his secret box.

She had completely vindicated herself with her results and the many useful insights she provided!

He briefly recalled that the Polymath had personally instructed Ves to achieve greater progress in one of his older MTA missions. So far, none of the MTA mech pilots serving in the Larkinson Clan as guest pilots had broken through to expert candidate after several years. This was abysmal progress!

He closed his eyes and made a few important decisions.

"Alright." He said. "I will start getting serious on this topic. The only issue is that you and I are full-time mech designers. We cannot divert too much time on this. We should look into hiring trusted helpers that can help us implement the suggestions you have made. I think I will set up a new confidential research group that will systematically conduct research on facilitating breakthroughs. The problem is that we need to staff it with people that we can trust."

This was a huge move that was bound to attract attention!

However, as long as this new research group took shape, the research on facilitating breakthroughs would no longer halt whenever he performed other activities.

Even if he went back to designing mechs, other researchers would make sure to conduct the studies that he had started!

Neither Ves nor Ketis knew anyone on the top of their heads that could become a part of this important new research group. They needed to pick their staff carefully because mistakes could easily lead to fatal accidents.

Ves intended to assign multiple different breakthrough-related projects to this new group. The Quint and the Enlightened Warriors all aimed to achieve the same result through different methods.

It was too bad that there weren't many people aside from himself who could properly manage the projects!

This was a familiar problem and one that Ves had struggled with for years.

According to his estimation, the only person who could truly lead these breakthrough-oriented research projects were people who received the inheritance of the Five Scrolls Compact!

In other words, Ves needed to get his hands on a madman like Dr. Jutland and someone convince him to obediently supervise his spirituality-related research projects.

Suffice to say, this was an unrealistic fantasy!

The safest option was to nurture a dedicated spiritual engineer and researcher from one of his own offspring. The downside to that was that it would take decades before one of his children could reach a satisfactory level!

Given the haste and time pressure that he was facing, Ves thought about applying a more unorthodox solution to his problem.

That was something to consider for later.

By the time that Ves and Ketis reached the end of their discussion, both of them were satisfied with what they achieved.

There was only one more topic that Ves wanted to bring up with his fellow Journeyman.

"Ketis."

"Yes?"

"Despite all of the fantastic suggestions you have made, you can't deny that there will always be an element of danger with our experiments. I am not comfortable subjecting our clansmen to experimental procedures. Even if your assistance and the assistance of expert pilots can reduce any potential accidents, screw ups will occur sooner or later. I would rather avoid seeing that happen to someone who has invested their trust in us. We have an obligation to protect them and we should take that seriously."

"I… don't disagree. What do you suggest, Ves?"

"We use the pakklatons we have taken prisoner as our test subjects."

"VES! YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULD KEEP THEM ALIVE!"

"I'm not talking about subjecting them to my old experiments!" Ves innocently raised his arms! "You taught me a few different approaches, and I already came up with one myself that I had always been waiting to try out. The pakklatons are not humans, but they are close enough to us that they can serve as useful guides on whether our new methods can truly make a difference."

Ketis calmed down a bit. Though she still expressed outrage, she was willing to hear him out at least.

"You know how important promises are to people like myself." She fiercely reminded him. "If you break your word, I will never find peace until I rectify the matter. Don't make this situation harder on me. Saving the pakklaton refugees may be a mistake in other people's eyes, but I did what I thought was right."

Though Ves thought that Ketis made an incredibly naive and troublesome decision, it wasn't enough for him to disregard her demands.

That didn't mean he wanted to cope with the headache of hosting tens of thousands of pakklatons for free!

Even if it didn't take a lot of effort to keep them fed and housed aboard the Dragon's Den, it was not good for a human fleet to keep collecting every sympathetic alien race it came across.

He already came up with several different solutions, but even the most gentle one presented hard decisions.

"Hear me out before you blast me any further. First, I don't know if you have noticed, but there's an MTA frigate constantly following behind our flagship. Everything we do is under their sights."

Ketis huffed. "I haven't forgotten about that, Ves. You've been trying to get on their good side. That's one of the reasons why you're so eager to confront the aliens."

"Maintaining our relations with the MTA is vital to our future. If the mechers don't approve of what we do, they will step in whether we like it or not. Right now, it is against their policies to extend any form of mercy towards the aliens. No matter whether they are reprehensible savages or harmless savages, as long as they do not identify with the human race, they are obstacles to the expansion of human civilization. Do you truly think you can keep the pakklaton refugees safe from the MTA's directive just because you asked nicely?"

The air around Ketis turned gloomy. Even Sharpie no longer appeared playful and upbeat.

"Sharp… sharp…"

Mrow.

Blinky tried his best to console Sharpie. Fortunately, the little humanoid companion spirit was made of condensed and empowered willpower, so she did not remain deflated for long.

A sense of power and pressure radiated from Sharpie. Her unyielding will made it so that she would never admit defeat so easily!

Perhaps the time for her to impose her will was not today, but Ketis was confident that a time would come where she could make the MTA take her seriously!

Anything could be cut as long as her blade was sharp enough.