The Mech Touch

The attempt to impart an expert mech with extraordinary properties had been the downfall of Professor Anton Mendoza's career.

Even as he moved on under several different guises, the earnest mech designer from the Vermeer Group was never able to let go of his original research project.

It was the mental scar that tortured his mind whenever his thoughts turned to an attempt to realize his design philosophy and advance to Master.

Perhaps it functioned as a mental block that sabotaged any effort he made to move past the bottleneck that was the source of his frustration and his drastic change in circumstances.

It did not seem to matter what identity he used and what badge he put on his output.

Professor Anton Mendoza who patriotically worked on behalf of the Blue Cavalry failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Professor Reno Jimenez who quickly inspired dread and fear as the infamous Skull Architect failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Now in his third guise, Professor Benedict Cortez who had become the second leader of the rising Cross Clan was determined to break the pattern!

Mere instances after Ves' Hammer of Brilliance struck the Senior Mech Designer's head, Professor Benedict experienced the greatest sense of enlightenment that he had ever experienced in almost 150 years of life!

As Anton Mendoza, he accumulated a lot of knowledge and gained a lot of experience with working on many different military-grade mechs.

He also learned a lot by holding regular exchanges and receiving many helpful lessons from the expansive community of Vermeer Group mech designers.

As the Skull Architect, he became a lot more radical in his conduct and his research experiments.

The incompetent pirates that botched everything he asked of them and the awful logistical circumstances that hindered him from gaining the resources he needed were but a few of the reasons why he became so unscrupulous towards his work.

The constant frustrations and setbacks had encouraged him to resort to increasingly more extreme and desperate methods in order to make any progress!

Though most of the research projects he conducted during the decades he spent in the Faris Star Region had failed for one reason or another, that did not mean he learned nothing throughout the process.

Much of what he learned during this chaotic and dangerous period of his life were derived from empirical data generated by practical experimentation.

This actually served to fill up a gap that he had neglected for a long time.

The Skull Architect gained a better feel and understanding for mechs. He also became more knowledgeable about what worked and what definitely did not work.

It was a pity that he had never come close to a viable solution to the critical problem that prevented his most important research project from succeeding.

Even though he obtained many different skulls and integrated them into mechs in various different ways, none of them had ever produced any results that were at least similar to the ones he obtained when he created his first 'skull mech'.

That did not deter him, though. He continued to soldier on and persisted on his research, hoping that his accumulation combined with a successful experiment might prove to be enough for him to break past his bottleneck eventually.

At the present day, Professor Benedict Cortez only possessed faint hope that the Mars Project would actually be able to give him the spark that he had been looking for in the second half of his life.

Although he spoke a little optimistically about his chances to the others, he knew quite well that relying on the Magma Vein System alone was not enough for him to realize his design philosophy.

The Magma Vein System was at best a system that optimized the use of energy and the way it was transmitted to different parts of mechs.

There was nothing overly special or extraordinary about it. Reaching a few percentage points closer to 100 percent efficiency was still within the realm of conventional technology. The biggest requirement was the use of quality materials that produced less waste than cheaper materials.

What little ingenuity he put into the Magma Vein System might make it difficult for other mech designers to imitate his work, but it was not adequate enough to serve as the basis of a breakthrough technology.

Secretly, he had always kept his original research project in his mind, even up to this day. He had put too much blood, sweat and tears in it to give up on his original idea.

While he recognized that he had become affected by the sunk cost fallacy, he could not bring himself to step away from the research that had caused him to become a fugitive and lose almost everything he worked for in the first half of his life.

Unfortunately, wanting something to happen was not enough to make it come true. Failed result after failed result continued to pile up while successes were few and far in between.

It was only after he came into contact with Ves Larkinson that he began to see renewed hope in achieving further progress.

Much to his amazement, the X-Factor that the Skull Architect painstakingly sought to impart in his mechs had become standard issue to the products developed by this young but talented mech designer.

His daring and his unorthodox approach to mech design reminded him a lot of Carmin Olson, who had since advanced to Master, just as she boasted in front of him all of those decades ago.

While Ves Larkinson's design philosophy and its applications were only tangibly related to his own ambitious goal, the Skull Architect nonetheless believed that he could leverage the younger mech designer's expertise to his own advantage.

What the man's wife managed to accomplish recently further vindicated his belief. Gloriana Wodin had worked much more extensively with Ves and got rewarded by it by developing her new god body concept, a method that could potentially empower and increase the quality of an expert mech by directly leveraging metaphysical input!

It was Gloriana's innovative solution that most recently occupied Professor Benedict's mind when he thought about his old research project.

He was not jealous of her and did not think her method was encroaching upon his own. The main crux of Gloriana's god body was that it was entirely dependent on external sources of energy to further the evolution of a mech.

That was not quite what Professor Benedict had in mind.

Despite all of the differences between his own ideas and that of the younger Larkinson mech designer, the exposure to different works continually inspired him and prompted him to revisit his old problems from a new angle.

This process had been taking place for several years now as he continually became confronted by one new innovative design application after another from the Larkinsons.

He just never found a way to tie it all together and produce a work that successfully applied what he learned in a new and innovative fashion.

Until now.

He had worked as a mech designer for over a century. Everything he learned and everything he became exposed to had continually piled up in his mind.

Some of what he absorbed had turned into useful knowledge while many other materials turned dormant as Professor Benedict never found a good use for them after all this time.

Yet now that a powerful external force known as Vulcan descended into his mind with his consent, a different perspective that was filled with a lot of foreign knowledge, much of which he never learned, began to sort through his knowledge accumulation.

This was the first time that Vulcan fully gained access to the mind of a formidable Senior Mech Designer.

Previously, the design spirit only descended upon the minds of artisans who did not have anything to do with mechs or Journeymen who were on the same level as Ves.

Professor Benedict possessed far more depth and insights on mechs than any of those people!

Though Vulcan had to spend a lot more time and struggled increasingly to understand the more advanced and abstruse knowledge that Professor Benedict had mastered, the vast exposure already produced certain results!

Vulcan's second perspective allowed him to tie unrelated pieces of knowledge together that previously did not appear to be related to each other.

This took place on a large scale as Professor Benedict directly benefited from the formidable intellect and wisdom of a design spirit who professed to be the God of Mechs among other domains.

Not only that, but Vulcan also lent a tiny portion of his own considerable expertise to Professor Benedict, giving him the keys that had prevented him from forming many useful realizations throughout the years.

As a result, Professor Benedict became flooded with insights, many of which were rather small and limited in scale, but a few of them were far more significant than usual.

Due to all of this mental activity, the so-called false inspired state that the Hammer of Brilliance was meant to induce on people quickly turned into a greater phenomenon!

Ves took a step back in astonishment as he could feel from Professor Benedict's body as well as his connection through the design network and Vulcan that the effect he produced was far greater than he anticipated!

"This…"

The value that Vulcan could bring to people differed by how much data, information and knowledge that they had gathered over the years.

To relatively young Journeymen like Ves and his fellow Larkinson mech designers, the benefits were relatively useful but fairly limited.

After all, they had only worked as professional mech designers for a decade at most. What they learned before that point was merely basic scientific knowledge that could hardly form the basis of any meaningful breakthroughs.

A Senior as old and experienced as Professor Benedict was substantially different!

He had lived almost four times as long as Ves, and spent a much greater proportion of his life pushing the limits of known science!

He accumulated a dreadful amount of advanced and experimental data and knowledge. Though only a fraction of it was truly useful and relevant to his attempt to progress his design philosophy further, Vulcan helped the Senior make countless new and useful associations in a short amount of time!

In fact, Professor Benedict's mind would have overheated by now if not for the fact that Vulcan was helping him process all of these new connections!

Soon enough, Professor Benedict's inspiration began to expand even further. Ves and the other Larkinson mech designers found to their surprise that the Senior was actually beginning to draw from portions of their expertise as well!

The additional knowledge that mech designers who approached mechs from radically different directions enriched Benedict even further to the point where he could finally summon up the courage to present a real solution to his problem!

"So it was like this all along… mechs… possess so many more possibilities than I thought."

True inspiration struck Professor Benedict as he rapidly formed a new design solution that he was determined to apply to the Mars Project despite the fact that it was not a part of the original design!

He turned towards the Larkinson mech designers with burning eyes. "Let us elevate the Mars to a new height!"

Professor Benedict had become so determined all of a sudden that Ves and the others didn't have the will or desire to resist.

The older mech designer then proceeded to turn to Patriarch Reginald Cross.

"I will need your cooperation as well."

"You will have it, professor." The leader of the Cross Clan replied.

Since Patriarch Reginald was connected to the design network as well, he could clearly learn that Professor Benedict had bold ideas in mind.

Though the expert pilot did not possess the expertise to judge whether Benedict's spontaneous new plan was any good, Reginald had a good feeling about what was about to occur.

Soon enough, Professor Benedict forcefully took charge of the fabrication effort and proceeded to inject his supercharged energy into the work process!