The Mech Touch

The Cerebral King had fallen silent after Ves elaborated on his offer of cooperation and explained the gist of the concessions that humans were willing to provide to the Evolver fish-whales.

Ves was incredibly confident in the success of this plan! He had gathered enough information about the king fish and its kingdom to know that insufficient access to resources was one of its greatest limitations.

Since the low amount of resources produced in the Evolution Kingdom was such a great constraint, relieving this condition just a little bit was enough to produce a qualitative improvement in battle strength!

This was an effect that Ves had experienced several times during his own past.

The first instance was when he initially got his hands on Cassandra Breyer's escape pod and had the bright idea of abusing its infinite resurrection property to 'produce' an endless amount of Breyer alloy!

Speaking of Breyer alloy, his perspective on this material has changed a lot since those early days. Back when he was a third-rater, he completely treated it as a miracle material that he could use to design and produce the initial version of the Bright Warrior design.

The original Bright Warriors that the Larkinson Clan produced in limited batches played a key role in winning a few difficult battles.

Although they were designed in the template of a third-class mech in almost every aspect, their abnormally strong Breyer alloy-based armor systems turned them into complete bug-like combat assets!

Clad in Breyer alloy, the early Bright Warriors had the capital to dominate any mech battle as long as second-class mechs weren't involved. Their ability to withstand almost all attacks was enough to transform many losing battles into comfortable victories!

The second instance where Ves was able to create mechs that leapt out of the strict divide between the classes was when he got his hands on a bunch of Unending alloy.

This ancient and mysterious material originated from an even more mysterious place. Even now, Ves still didn't possess a good understanding of the Nyxian Gap.

If not for dreading the pursuit of the Five Scrolls Compact, he would have loved to delay his journey to the Red Ocean by a few years in order to scavenge for more Unending alloy.

Sadly, events rarely played out as he wished. The short reunion with his parents and his battle against the most powerful spiritual sorcerers that he had ever come across had produced massive repercussions that cut his hopes of conducting a treasure hunt short.

He did not regret the choices he made back then but still felt endless pain for leaving behind such a unique treasure space. The numerous odd clues he gathered along with bumping into numerous different remnants of alien civilizations told him that the Nyxian Gap was once a center for powerful races that developed their spiritualities to a high level!

An artificial material like Unending alloy did not emerge from nothing. A powerful alien civilization must have formulated it in the past after many generations of research and development.

If Ves could have played archeologist in the Nyxian Gap for a decade, he was confident that he could have traced the origin of Unending alloy and maybe even obtain the original formula to produce more if it himself!

He quietly sighed. It was such an enormous pity that he had to abandon this chance and find different opportunities in the Red Ocean.

It was because of this experience that Ves became more determined not to miss the current opportunity before his eyes. As long as he was able to forge a successful deal with the Cerebral King, he would be able to obtain a harvest that was far greater than obtaining a few chunks of Unending alloy!

As the king fish deeply contemplated the proposal that Ves had offered, its mentality continued to undergo a lot of turbulence.

Fish-whale society was still stuck in an extremely primitive stage. The need to hide or deceive information from different fish-whales was not necessary as there wasn't much they could fight for. The Cerebral King had always been the top dog in the Evolution Kingdom by virtue of its superior biology.

Because of these circumstances, there was no need for it to learn how to hide its mood swings. This granted Ves a huge advantage in his negotiations with the king fish. Being able to read exactly what the other side thought about his offers and clarification allowed him to fine-tune his terms without giving up too many concessions.

This was a dream scenario that would never happen in human society!

Ves continued to smile even when he sensed that the Cerebral King still lacked confidence in the offer it received.

The might and prestige of the Phase Kingdom had left a deep mark in its psyche!

Although the massive king fish hadn't fought against the Phase King and its subordinates often, it had been deeply traumatized by their powerful and unstoppable phasewater-derived abilities.

CANNOT FIGHT. TRAITOR TOO STRONG. POWER OF GODBLOOD TOO GREAT. ONLY GODBLOOD CAN DEFEAT GODBLOOD. TOO MANY KIN WILL DIE IN ATTACK. CANNOT DEFEND AGAINST OTHER TRAITORS.

This was a legitimate concern, and one that Ves needed to address in order to get over this hurdle.

"Phasewater is a powerful reagent, but it is not the only source of strength that we can leverage." Ves replied. "Most of humanity's mechs have become powerful without relying on this valuable material. Instead, creators like myself use a combination of high-quality materials and powerful energy sources to develop mechs that can become strong enough to rival or defeat fish-whales like yourself. If we can provide these same resources to an individual that is already strong like yourself and your deputies, you can easily double, triple or even quadruple your combat effectiveness! Will the Phase King be able to match you in single combat by then? Even if he has access to lots of phasewater, he is still limited by his biological limitations, while you are different!"

The Cerebral King still looked unconvinced.

NOT ENOUGH. VICTORY MORE PROBABLE, BUT DAMAGE TOO GREAT. CANNOT PREVENT LOSSES. TRAITOR GOOD AT DESTROYING MANY KIN. CANNOT PROTECT MY KIN. CANNOT DEFEND AGAINST OTHER TRAITORS WITHOUT KIN. TOO DANGEROUS.

Ves grimaced a bit. To be honest, he didn't care about the losses suffered by the Evolvers because they weren't his people in the first place. He only wanted to conduct a pure transaction, not help the Evolver fish-whales prosper in this pocket space.

However, in the interest of gaining the cooperation of the Cerebral King, Ves figured that he needed to put more effort into convincing this cautious and risk-averse king fish to overcome its inertial thinking.

The Cerebral King spent so many years turtling in his territory that he had long lost his sense of aggression and fire!

Just the thought of venturing out of the Lab Continent in order to launch a raid on another continent had long been extinguished from his mind!

A single proposal was not enough to convince this ancient fish to completely overturn his mentality. Ves had to keep chipping away at the Cerebral King's stuck mentality.

As he continued to argue with the Cerebral King, he also contemplated several contingency plans that he had formulated beforehand with his advisors.

Relying on the Evolution Kingdom to break open the Phase Kingdom was a key part of his plan, but that didn't mean it was no longer necessary to look further.

The Cerebral King's fears about attacking the Phase Kingdom were well-founded! From the king fish's descriptions of the Phaser fish-whales in combat to the Larkinson Biotech Institute own analysis of the potent phasewater abilities that these beasts were able to harness, a direct attack would definitely exact a ruinous price on every attacker!

A force of a thousand Evolver fish-whales and a thousand mechs simply wasn't strong enough to crush the Phasers occupying the critically-important Lake Continent.

The landmass that possessed the largest amount of renewable phasewater deposits was one of the biggest prizes in the eyes of the fish-whales. The Hive King and the Fusion King frequently tested its defenses because they couldn't give up on conquering an annexing the continent that was overflowing with phasewater.

Yet no matter how many attacks they launched, the large number of Phasers occupying this key landmass were able to repel all of them. The only variable of concern was how much energy, phasewater and resources they drained as they defended their territory.

If the Phase Kingdom truly had to repel a serious invasion, then Ves had little doubt that the Phase King and its subordinates would not hesitate to exhaust their reserves to demolish the massive threat to their kingdom!

No matter how Ves tried to approach this problem, he understood that there was no way that the Evolvers and the human mechs could avoid massive casualties in a serious confrontation.

If this was the case, then the only way to open up the Phase Kingdom while preventing needless losses from occurring was to provoke another kingdom to launch an attack first!

Ves instantly honed in on one of the more interesting contingency plans. He recalled that Calabast had played a large role in shaping it. This was no surprise. A plan this devious was exactly in her ballpark!

"I have a potential solution to allow us both to harvest as much phasewater as we want." He suddenly said. "The probability that we can succeed is not high, but if we can make it work, we can successfully plunder a lot of phasewater without losing too many of our soldiers."

EXPLAIN PLAN.

"It is quite simple. We find a way to lure a large horde of Swarmer fish-whales out of their territories and lead them straight to the Lake Continent. Once the Swarmers and the Phasers collide against each other, they will inevitably get locked in a ruinous battle!"

The Cerebral King conveyed a sense of disappointment.

NO. CANNOT WORK. TOO FLAWED. SWARMER KIN CANNOT BE LURED. ALREADY TRIED MANY TIMES. NEVER WORKS. HIVE KING WILL LEARN OF ATTEMPT AND STOP IT. SWARMER KIN WILL NEVER TRAVEL TOO FAR AWAY FROM THEIR ORIGIN.

Ves slowly nodded. He expected that the Swarmers would have precautions against this move, but that didn't mean it was a foolproof method!

"What if we can trick the Swarmers into launching an offensive?"

IMPOSSIBLE. SWARMER KIN ONLY OBEYS HIVE KING. WILL NEVER OBEY OTHERS. CANNOT DEFY ORDERS OF HIVE KING.

"No method is perfect." Ves repeated. "Let me trade additional information to you. Did you know that our scientists have started to study the Swarmer bodies that we have killed? We have paid special attention to their brains and have made a start into learning how they can be controlled or directed."

IMPOSSIBLE TO SUCCEED. HAVE TRIED. ONLY HIVE KING CAN ORDER THESE KIN.

"This is why we must work together! If we can combine our knowledge and conduct this study together, we may be able to develop a solution that can compromise the Hive King's control over its subordinates. Let me ask you this. How does the Hive King control its subordinates?"

POWER OF MIND. INHERITED FROM GOD. HIVE KING IS SOLE AND POWERFUL CONTROLLER. NO ONE ELSE CAN MATCH THIS POWER.

"I beg to differ." Ves shook his head. "I have a potential solution that we can use that may temporarily allow us to take control over the Swarmer fish-whales."

IMPOSSIBLE. HOW?

Ves turned to Venerable Joshua again. "Please switch the Everchanger's glow from the Golden Cat to the Titania and try to resonate with her. Let's give the king fish another show."

"With pleasure, sir!"

Soon enough, the Everchanger's aura shifted dramatically. It went from exuding a warm and welcome vibe to gaining a weaker but more domineering air that did not camouflage its compulsion to take control over certain forms of life!

It was as if the Everchanger had turned into an alien mirror of the Minerva!

The only difference was that the Minerva was designed to Commandeer mechs and mech pilots while the Everchanger vaguely gave the impression that it was capable of dominating alien beasts!