The Mech Touch

"Hahahaha…"

"Hahahaha!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

In the cockpit of the mech that had become the vessel of Lufa in his guise as the Aspect of Transcendence, one of its occupants had completely lost control of himself!

"Meow!"

Lucky jumped from the top of the seat and flew backwards in order to distance himself from the man who was currently laughing like a deranged madman!

Ves didn't care about his cat's reaction. How could he spare the time to pay attention to his pet when he had triggered one of the most wonderful spectacles that he had ever set into motion?

By radiating the glow of the Aspect of Transcendence far and wide, the Everchanger turned into an angel that was able to inspire the best out of mech pilots!

"I see now! I see! This is the true way to utilize this glow!"

The Aspect of Transcendence was one of his most inspiring and life-changing inventions.

Created out of a series of four organic statues, Ves couldn't explain the mood and circumstances he was in to form a fourth statue that was so much different than the previous three.

As hinted by the name that Ves had bestowed upon it, the Aspect of Transcendence was a vessel to help people transcend their mortal limitations.

It did so by applying a theory that Ves had slowly developed over the course of his career after coming into contact with numerous expert pilots and learning about their various properties.

To Ves, expert pilots were brutish oafs and louts that were brilliant at fighting but bad at everything else.

Although that sounded like a pejorative assessment, he also admired them for how much strength they derived from their extreme adherence to their values and principles.

Ves theorized that the reason why expert pilots always came across as blunt instruments was because their extraordinary power was based on developing their willpower, and the best way to do so was to get obsessed about a goal or principle.

By centering one's life around a certain principle to the point where it became the focal point of their hearts, these remarkable warriors were able to burst out with unusual strength and turn their willpower from something weak and illusionary into a weapon that allowed them to affect reality in remarkable ways.

Ves created the Aspect of Transcendence with the intention of inducing and accelerating the process of self-discovery and dedication of one's life to a chosen conviction!

It was a pity that the actual results did not yield the results he expected.

In his previous experiments with a couple of hundred less-than-voluntary test subjects, the people subjected to the Aspect of Transcendence's glow indeed became stimulated by its influence.

The problem was that the vast majority of them were too weak and unprepared to properly benefit from this gift!

Nothing came without a price, and the Aspect of Transcendence ultimately made that clear when the test subjects could no longer endure the increasingly heavier strain on their minds and spirits.

The cleaning bots had to wipe away a lot of bloodstains and broken bits of bone and brain matter because of the burden!

After obtaining these results, Ves concluded that most people simply weren't ready to attain this power. The dangerous and outright lethal nature of the Aspect of Transcendence had dashed his hopes of using it to take the entire mech industry by storm in a single leap.

His research on the Aspect of Transcendence had stalled after these failures. Even though he theorized that well-trained mech pilots would be able to succeed where many of his test subjects had failed, he could not take the risk of subjecting any of his clansmen to this dangerous instrument.

It was only when Ketis used the Aspect of Transcendence without his authorization that Ves gained more confidence in using it on his own clansmen.

Of course, as Ves drafted his plans to form his ambition T Institute, he did not envision throwing his mech pilots within the range of the infamous statue's glow and see what would happen.

He already composed numerous different experimental research proposals in his mind.

The safe and proper way to experiment with the Aspect of Transcendence was to begin small and slow. The advice provided by Ketis had made him realize he did not need to subject his people to its full effect.

If this battle didn't occur and if Ves was not in the middle of it, he wouldn't have thought to bring one of his forbidden experiments forward at all. He would have adopted the mindset of a proper researcher and started with exposing a weakened and castrated version of the glow to different groups of people on a tentative and long-term basis.

It could take months if not years for any of these experiments to yield any obvious results, but it was worth it as long as no one's heads exploded as a result.

However, Ves no longer thought that was the best way to make use of this unique glow.

"What is happening outside the Everchanger is a much better application!"

Expert candidates and expert pilots were breaking through at a frequency unseen since the Battle against the Abyss!

Different from the previous where the underlying cause of the abundant breakthroughs was centered around an abnormal environment, this time the cause was man-made and completely under his control!

His eyes lit up with glee and satisfaction as he felt an enormous sense of accomplishment for the outcome that his inventions had produced!

"The Everchanger is truly my most useful work!"

It was not his strongest expert mech, but its ability to swap between design spirits and glows was invaluable!

This feature essentially allowed the Everchanger to replicate almost every possible glow that Ves had utilized in the past!

Even a dangerous but incredibly promising glow like the one associated with the Aspect of Transcendence became accessible despite the fact that the organic statue was locked inside his workshop aboard the Spirit of Bentheim!

All of this meant that the circumstances of today could be repeated on many occasions!

"The key to transcendence has fallen into my hands!" He grinned in an uncontrollable fashion. "With this method, the threshold to advancement has never been lower!"

To Ves, the sights outside were magnificent beyond description.

It was literally raining breakthroughs as many desperate mech pilots who had been fighting to the point of exhaustion had found new strength within themselves!

"Hahaha! Keep spreading our glow to all of our men, Joshua! Don't let anyone miss out on this party! It will be up to them whether they will find their chance today, but they have already received a greater advantage than what many other mech pilots have enjoyed in their lives!"

Though Venerable Joshua was surprised and caught off-guard with the incredible results produced by the Everchanger's current glow, he did not let his doubt and astonishment interfere with his duties.

He knew that he was playing a pivotal role for the expeditionary forces right now. Helping his comrades and allies break past their mortal limitations was one of the best ways he could contribute to this battle, so he did not dare to slack off and get distracted!

Ves had already told Joshua that it was not wise to expose any single individual to the Everchanger's glow too long, so the pilot made sure his expert mech flew around from site to site.

The Everchanger did not dampen or suppress the Aspect of Transcendence's glow in any way, so Joshua had to make sure that no one got exposed for too long.

Ves actually expected breakthroughs to occur at a far lower rate than what was happening in reality.

After all, during his previous experiments, even the best performers only broke through when they were exposed to the dangerous glow for more than 80 seconds.

Considering that this same glow also tended to explode people's heads when exposed for 90 seconds or so, the margin for error was extremely thin!

Yet now, the time it took for certain mech pilots to break through was much lower than during his controlled experiments!

Already, over 20 different mech pilots had broken through, and the outbursts of power had yet to stop!

The conditions on this battlefield should have been much worse than a controlled lab environment. He initially thought that the myriad of distractions and the need to concentrate on fighting should have lowered the chances of success.

"I was wrong!"

It turned out that he had been making false assumptions based on preconceived notions that he should have questioned more.

He also missed plenty of obvious clues that he should have thought about when trying to make good use of the Aspect of Transcendence!

"It turns out that it is not enough to rely on this glow to induce the right mindset to a mech pilot who is in a calm and peaceful setting."

The glow had to do too much work in that instance since the test subject in question was as far away from being in the right mindset to break through.

"There's a reason why most mech pilots tend to break through in life-and-death battles!"

The stress, the wild emotions and the stripping of masks all brought mech pilots closer to their hearts and true selves than ever before!

These highly active and incredibly emotional mech pilots had already brought themselves closer to the point of where they could push through their limits than before.

Ordinarily, most mech pilots never succeeded in advancing past this difficult barrier. The vast majority of mech pilots either died or returned from the battlefield with no essential change in their life phases.

Yet what if a glow existed that could give them a little push? One that was just enough for them to barge through the bottleneck that had hindered them for many years?

"This is exactly where this glow can play its strength to its fullest!" Ves happily concluded.

He compared it to the process of making a masterwork mech. The parallels were clear and obvious.

It was not enough to put a decent amount of effort into designing and fabricating a new mech.

He had to dedicate his heart to his work and invest a lot of time, attention, resources and affection in the mech design project.

Even then, it was far from guaranteed that his high investment would be able to yield the promising returns.

Many mech designers spent months and years on their passion projects only to result in mechs of relatively unremarkable quality.

The threshold to masterwork mech was insanely high and only the most skilled and dedicated professionals in the mech industry could even hope to surpass it in their lifetimes!

"The right tool can make all of the difference, though."

Humans had always relied on tools to gain advantages and produce results that they originally did not deserve to obtain.

Ves was able to become a masterwork mech designer a lot sooner than any other mech designer by relying Lucky's gems. Their ability to make up for the shortfall in the quality of mechs was an immense advantage that was enough to change many people's lives for the better!

"The Aspect of Transcendence plays a similar role!"

The proof of that was clear to see around him as many mech pilots that previously fought normally now displayed extraordinary strength!

All of that was because they became exposed to the Everchanger's latest glow for as little as 20 or 30 seconds!

This indicated that putting mech pilots in the right states was an effective way of increasing the success rate of inducing artificial breakthroughs!

Best of all, this was also far beyond the danger limit of 90 seconds where people's heads tended to blow up in gruesome fashion. Ves became a lot more reassured about letting the Everchanger propagate this effect.

Ves had yet to receive any reports about his subordinates losing an essential part of their bodies, so it must be fine!

"It's fine even if there are a couple of accidents, haha!" Ves grinned and laughed.

No mech pilot could resist the temptation to rise above mediocrity, not even if there was a 50 percent death rate!