The Mech Touch

The gap-closing capabilities of the Titan-3 Project did not have to be so extreme.

There were organic and mechanical booster modules that possessed much more temperate characteristics.

For example, there was a variation of the organic booster model that could be activated two separate times before they ran out of fuel.

This was particularly popular for melee mechs specialized in raiding and sabotage actions. They could get close to an enemy position quickly, perform their missions, and boost away from the danger zone when they were done.

Aside from that, there were many other variants that could be activated and deactivated upon command were the most conventional ones available.

However, Ves fully understood why Dr. Perris made the design choice to opt for a single-use organic booster model.

It was incredibly powerful.

All of the organic parts related to modulating the thrust output and fuel expenditure were left out. Instead, the boosters were solely designed to deliver the maximum thrust power that a component of such a size could deliver!

By adhering to such an extreme and singular goal, the single-use boosters were much more powerful and efficient than the more complicated alternatives.

Was it the right choice to equip the Everchanger with a meat suit that could only go on a one-way trip to the enemy position while it was encumbered by so much repurposed astral beast flesh?

It depended on the situation.

"We can cope with this shortcoming." Ves said as he continued to study the scale model of the latest iteration of the Titan-3 Project. "The meat suit is an optional piece of equipment. We don't have to make use of it in every battle. We should only reserve it for battles where we have a need to send a powerhouse mech all the way to our opponents. If the enemy does not have any powerful defenses against the Everchanger equipped with the meat suit, then the risk that Venerable Joshua must call a retreat is small. It won't have to rely on boosters to get away if that is the case."

If the Larkinsons miscalculated the situation, then Venerable Joshua always had the option to purge the meat suit and free up the regular version of the Everchanger.

The expert hero mech was a lot faster and more mobile in its base form!

This was not a scenario that Ves liked, though. The meat suit was expensive and it would be a shame if it got tossed away only for the enemy to annihilate it in spite!

After Ves knew everything he needed to know about its mobility, he turned its attention to its more direct combat capabilities.

"The Titan-3 Project is designed to perform as an overwhelming melee powerhouse. Before, I wanted it to turn into a humanoid monster that can bull through enemy mech formations and wreak havoc among them, but that is less of a priority as of late."

Ves almost forgot the last time the Larkinsons fought against a conventional mech force. The MTA protection period was still valid for a period of time so there was not an acute need to strengthen his clan's ability to fight against human forces.

"What we truly need is a more powerful weapon against warships like the ones utilized by the pakklaton race." Ves continued. "I hope our Titan-3 Project can fulfill this role."

Dr. Perris responded with a confident smile. "The meat suit will definitely satisfy you. Do you recall how difficult it was for our weapons to pierce through the outer layers of the Titania? There are two different reasons why that was the case. First, the Titania's flesh is dense and enhanced by a myriad of different exotic materials that the ancient creature has ingested over the years. Second, its organic nature makes it easy for it to heal and regenerate. When applied to a form that is the size of an enlarged mech, it is tough enough to withstand a lot of firepower but also mobile enough to evade some attacks."

"Can you give me the numbers?"

"Why certainly."

The biomech designer presented a few documents that summarized the projected defensive parameters of the Titan-3 Project.

Ves quickly learned that the Titania's flesh wasn't as exaggeratingly tough as he expected.

The reason why the original astral beast was so hard to take down was because the creature was so immense. She was 5 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide. On top of that, much of her internal structure was made out of solid flesh and matter. That provided the creature with such an immense buffer that ordinary weapons would have put in an extreme amount of effort in order to reach the core of the massive beast!

The Titan-3 Project, while making use of the same flesh of the ancient astral beast, was not nearly as thick and massive. It only used a speck of the flesh that protected the Titania.

So how could it possibly resist enough damage to turn the meat suit viable as a fleet destroying machine?

"The documents that you are perusing right now are not the complete picture." Dr. Perris said and used her comm to flick over another virtual document. "These are the test results that we have obtained after working together with Venerable Joshua. His unique talents have completely changed the game."

She did not exaggerate. While the document stated that Venerable Joshua's attempts to resonate with regular cloned organic tissue did not yield any success due to lacking resonating materials, the Titania's tissue samples were a different story.

"What?!" Ves leaned forward as if he wanted to make sure he was interpreting the explanations and data correctly. Joshua has actually succeeded in resonating with the Titania's dead flesh?"

"Yes. This is a pleasant surprise. While the effect is not as strong as we would wish, I believe the finished version of the Titan-3 Project will be able to yield a pleasant surprise. If you wish, I can show you the log footage."

"Please do. I need to see this for myself."

The footage was not exciting. It merely showed Venerable Joshua cooperating with a series of lab tests by employing his unique life domain in different experiments.

Although his life domain was extremely rare in regular mech circles, the biomech community actually possessed a greater familiarity with expert pilots who possessed similar inclinations.

This was why Dr. Perris and her staff performed a series of standard experiments to learn how Venerable Joshua was able to interact with different forms of biotechnology.

The bad news was that Joshua actually didn't perform well in most of the tests. Other expert pilots with a focus on life almost always piloted biomechs and possessed a deeper understanding and connection with them. It was logical for them to evolve their strengths in a way that allowed them to make better use of organic matter.

Joshua on the other hand piloted 'living mechs' rather than 'biomechs' throughout his career. The former had always been regular metallic mechs that did not contain a hint of organic components.

Therefore, it shouldn't have been a surprise that Joshua's compatibility with biotechnology wasn't the best.

This made the unexpected outcome of the test involving the Titania's biomatter so surprising. What made it different from other forms of tissue? Why could Joshua resonate with it when it didn't even contain any of the rare resonating materials known to humanity? Did it contain a secret ingredient? Or was another factor at play?

"I think… I have a possible answer to this result." Ves slowly said. "What do you think?"

Dr. Perris was not stupid. She might just be an Apprentice, but she was a qualified biomech designer who had already spent a lot of time in the Larkinson Clan.

"I believe it has to do with your specialization. From what I understand of your design philosophy and Venerable Joshua's specialization, the distinction here is that the previous experiments failed because we were making use of artificially-cloned tissue samples. In other words, they are lab-grown pieces of meat that have never played a part in any organism's life."

The Dragon's Den regularly produced artificial biomatter for various purposes. It was standard practice and it was a much more convenient and humane way of performing biological experiments and procedures than harvesting flesh from other organisms.

However, this method of creating biomatter had a major flaw. It had no ties to any living entities so it was lacking a crucial element.

"The Titania is the opposite of artificial tissue." Dr. Perris stated. "It is completely natural. Not only that, but it is grown by an ancient creature that has lived an extremely long and relatively rich life. While the exact ages of the harvest flesh varies by hundreds if not thousands of years, they are all intricately connected to a living astral beast. We believe that has imparted all of its flesh with an invisible quality that makes them a lot more compatible to Venerable Joshua."

This was incredibly interesting to Ves. The Titania's flesh was a natural resonating material. No one knew the exact factors that made this possible, but the point was that the Titan-3 Project had obtained the breakthrough it needed to make real progress!

"So tell me how this discovery ties into the Titan-3 Project." Ves asked.

The biomech designer activated another projection that displayed a simulated scenario where Venerable Joshua resonated with the Everchanger while it was equipped with a version of the meat suit.

The expert pilot not only succeeded in resonating with the mounted wargear as a whole, but could also take advantage of this property!

By empowering the meat suit with true resonance, it became a lot more resilient against damage. Any non-expert mech sources of damage would become drastically less effective because they were unable to overcome the reality-distorting effect that made resonating expert mechs so tough to eliminate!

Even if a powerful enemy came along and damaged portions of the meat suit, Venerable Joshua was able to correct it by activating its Active Regeneration resonating ability!

With the power of Fixer Iron, the Everchanger was able to extend its powerful regeneration effect to its meat suit, thereby repairing any damaged tissue and possibly even growing additional tissue to fill in any gaps in the organic structure!

"How sure are you that the Active Regeneration resonating ability will even work?" Ves inquired. "After all, the meat suit is not technically a part of the Everchanger. It's an add-on that is outside of the scope of the base model."

"We do not know for certain whether our theories are correct and whether this simulation is accurate enough." Dr. Perris frankly admitted. "We can only truly find out when we actually grow the meat suit and test it out in reality. This is also why we have not yet completed this project as of yet. We still need to gather enough data as possible in order to strengthen or disprove our many assumptions about the Titan-3 Project. For what it is worth, I have a high confidence that the current iteration of the meat suit will succeed, but we cannot be 100 percent certain."

Ves understood the dilemma that the Scarlet Garden was in and did not begrudge Dr. Perris for taking her time.

"That's fine, but I hope that the time for making guesses will soon come to an end."

"We only need a few more weeks to formally complete the Titan-3 Project, sir. The only issue is that it will take a month, maybe two, to reshape the Titania's biomatter into the actual meat suit. This is a slow and cumbersome process that cannot be rushed."

"That's acceptable. I don't think we will enter into battle anytime soon. Once it is complete, how well do you think its defenses will fare against strong opponents?"

"The combination of superior defenses and high-speed cellular regeneration will turn the meat suit into a resilient combat monster that cannot be put down unless an enemy is able to destroy it with a single powerful blow. As long as the meat suit remains intact enough, Venerable Joshua will always be able to restore its condition and resist more damage as a result. This will especially become more prominent over time as his resonance strength grows. If he lives long enough to become a high-tier expert pilot, then…"

"The meat suit will become as unkillable as a zombie!"