The Mech Touch

Every Larkinson expert pilot exited their cockpits and left the hangar bay with bitter expressions.

Each of them were accustomed to pulling out miracles on the battlefield. It was a significant letdown to know that they could do nothing at all to suppress or repel Patriarch Reginald Cross and the Mars in a serious battle.

Sure, the Larkinsons may have withheld a few tricks such as battle formations, but it was doubtful that those solutions could have overcome the absolute gap in power as well.

The Mars was for all intents and purposes an ace mech-level combat asset as far as everyone was concerned.

Though the expert mech technically did not contain the full set of components that corresponded to ace mechs, its extraordinarily powerful pilot was more than strong enough to close the gap!

As such, the Cross Clan had gained an absolute advantage over the Larkinson Clan in terms of martial strength.

It did not matter if the latter outnumbered the former in terms of expert mechs and ordinary mechs.

The presence of a single ace pilot was enough to completely skew the results of any battle!

This was a gap that the Larkinsons could not close for a long time!

After all, in order obtain an asset that could compete fairly against Patriarch Reginald and the Mars, the Larkinson Clan first needed to cultivate its own ace pilot!

As the Larkinson expert pilots all exchanged morose glances with each other, it became clear that none of them would be closing the gap anytime soon.

They first needed to become mid-tier expert pilots and then high-tier expert pilots before they could think about making this life-changing step.

Depending on their talent, training and whether they had access to a masterwork expert mech, this growth process could take decades!

That was a lot of time the Larkinsons would spend without enjoying the protection of an ace pilot of their own.

While the clan was fairly good at producing new expert pilots, each of them had to start from the beginning, so they were no help at all in any top-level combat scenarios.

The only faint source of hope was Venerable Davia Stark, who had developed much more than her peers.

The problem was that she was technically a guest pilot who did not commit to serving the Larkinson Clan on a permanent basis.

So even if she was actually a mid-tier expert pilot, she wouldn't stick around to protect the Larkinsons forever.

However, her head-start did make it so that she was the most likely expert pilot among them to advance to ace pilot first.

This meant that the Larkinsons would still have to rely on Venerable Stark to protect the clan for the remainder of the time she was fighting alongside her current compatriots.

Venerable Joshua clenched his fist. Though it was not unjust for him to be unable to threaten the Patriarch Reginald in the slightest, he still felt inadequate after their bout.

"I need to do more to catch up. I can't take everything for granted anymore."

The Larkinson Clan enjoyed so many successes as of late that he had unconsciously lowered his training intensity.

Though he was still fairly earnest in his desire to grow stronger, he had spent more time with Ketis ever since she had given birth.

Joshua valued his identity as a father quite a lot! As someone who cherished life in all forms, to be able to raise his own child provided him with a sense of joy that was indescribable.

Although his mentality underwent a lot of changes after he started to embody the role of a father, his skills improved slower than he liked.

"I need to step up my training and figure out more ways to defeat strong opponents." Joshua decided.

Now that he thought about it, he always relied on others to cover this area.

Part of it was because Joshua wasn't particularly good at dueling. He was an all-rounder as a pilot and his Everchanger did not possess any pronounced strengths.

Another part of it was because he never saw the need to excel in this aspect.

However, the traumatic encounter against the Mars told him that he would definitely regret it if he did not do something about this shortcoming!

What if Patriarch Reginald Cross wasn't available to stop the enemy's most powerful champion?

What if Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise already had their hands full with stopping other champions?

There weren't a lot of Larkinson expert mechs left that could fend off these sort of peak threats!

At this time, Venerable Joshua truly wanted to step up and become closer to a fearless warrior like Patriarch Reginald!

From the surging combativeness that emanated from the other Larkinson expert pilots, Joshua clearly wasn't alone in his new resolve.

Back in the observation room, Ves and the others wrapped up all of the data from the initial testing session and already began to draw preliminary conclusions from what they witnessed.

"Defense is the strongest side of the Mars, at least for now." Sara Voiken stated first. "Reginald's Saint Kingdom combined with the Abasis Armor are so intractable that not even a warship should be able to overpower these defensive measures in an instant."

Professor Benedict did not quite agree. "That is only relative to weaker and more mundane threats, young lady. The Mars is ultimately an offensive mech. In order to ensure that it packs a sufficient punch, we did not do our utmost in maximizing its defensive power. Against a genuine ace mech, the Mars will have to play on a much more even ground. At the very least, Reginald's Saint Kingdom will probably get neutralized by the opposing ace pilot's Saint Kingdom."

An area could not accommodate two kings. If different ace pilots tried to lay claim to the same area of space, they would inevitably collide with each other, causing them to cancel out each other's domain fields!

This was why Saint Kingdoms weren't prioritized any further. They might be extremely useful in helping ace mechs fight against warships and weaker mechs, but it took other measures in order for them to defeat opponents of the same kind!

"How does the Abasis Armor fare in comparison to other ace mechs?" Ves curiously asked.

"From what I have been told, it is more than adequate enough to keep up in battles against other ace mechs." Professor Benedict reassured everyone. "Although there are ace mechs that possess even more exotic defensive solutions, few of them enjoy transphasic armor systems at the moment. The Mars will not find itself wanting because of inadequate defenses."

That provided everyone with a bit of relief. They already wanted to count on the Mars to block any enemy ace mechs if they showed up in the future.

The mech designers swapped more opinions and insights. Each of them had plenty to say about the Mars. Most of their opinions were positive, but not everything was perfect about the high-tier expert mech.

Gloriana pointed out a particularly concerning weak point. "The endurance of the Mars is pretty remarkable, but a large proportion of its performance is directly reliant on the health and state of its pilot. What this means is that the Mars will fight a lot better if Patriarch Reginald is in a good mood, but if he is injured or in the wrong mind state, then his mech will not be able to perform up to our expectations."

"There's more." Ves added. "Even if Reginald is in a good mood, there are a lot of aspects of the Mars that directly rely on true resonance in order to deliver the best possible performance. The domain field, the Abasis Armor, the transphasic axe and every other resonating exotic that we put into the design are all highly effective as long as Patriarch Reginald has willpower to spare. While we don't have to worry about the Mars running on fumes as long as we end up in an ordinary fight, if the battle happens to drag on for many hours or if one enemy group arrives after another, pilot exhaustion will become a real concern."

This was a pretty major issue. When expert pilots and ace pilots strain their minds and will to the point where they ran themselves ragged, then there was no easy way for them to restore their willpower in a short amount of time.

Only a good sleep and an extended rest would allow them to restore their reserves. This could take as much as an entire day if not more depending on many factors.

There were no stimulants or medicines that could hasten the recovery of their extraordinary willpower.

This was unlike mechs that normally only had to swap out their depleted energy cells for fresh ones in order to get ready for another round of fighting.

Therefore, it was quite realistic for a situation to occur where the Mars was still able to fight for many hours, but because Patriarch Reginald had already repelled one wave of enemies with difficulty, could not deploy again as a second wave of enemy was about to descend upon the Golden Skull Alliance!

"This shows that we cannot offload all of our responsibilities to Patriarch Reginald and the Mars." Professor Benedict eventually concluded. "We need to offload as many of them to our other assets as possible. We shouldn't employ the Mars against enemies that can easily be wiped out by our regular mech forces."

"You mean we should treat the Mars as a trump card?"

"More of an option of last resort. If possible, we should keep Reginald and his powerful mech in reserve. It would be best if the Mars does not fight at all. Regular threats should be dealt with by our regular mech units. More potent threats should be handled by our expert mechs and other special solutions. We should only bring out the Mars when we encounter an enemy that we cannot solve with the aforementioned means."

This was the best arrangement, all considered. The Mars could easily crush weaker opponents, but why bother with letting that happen? The Larkinsons and the Cross Clan possessed plenty of formidable mech units. Their other mech pilots needed the practice as well!

Keeping the Mars in reserve also ensured that the Golden Skull Alliance would have a fully-charged 'weapon of mass destruction' at its fingertips at any point during a hostile encounter.

It would be a tragedy if the Mars wasted much of its power resisting against regular opponents only for a hostile ace mech to show up at a later point!

"We can discuss our strategies and doctrines at a later date." Ves said. "Leave this job to our generals and military personnel. We should focus on our real jobs. Are there any shortcomings of the Mars that we should address, either in the short term or in the medium term?"

The Mars was about to undergo a years-long upgrade process, but that did not mean it would get dismantled right away.

Professor Benedict and his Unbounder buddies would merely spend a lot of time puzzling over a revised design. Once they successfully completed the upgraded design would they truly take the precious machine apart!

Therefore, there was still room to make relatively minor tweaks that ensured the Golden Skull Alliance would enjoy the strongest possible protection for the coming years.

"We have yet to equip the Mars with a minidrive." Juliet Stameros pointed out. "The high-tier expert mech would become a lot more effective in spaceborn battles if it is equipped with this module."

"How easy is it for us to get our hands on a minidrive?"

Professor Benedict's expression turned angry. "It depends on how much phasewater you are willing to pay to the few companies that manufacture minidrives. If you are willing to pay the 'prevailing market price' of double the phasewater needed to fabricate a minidrive, then these high-tech firms will eagerly oblige us. If you try to negotiate with them, they will put you on a waiting list that is so long that it will take decades before we can get our turn!"

"Haven't you tried to acquire any of those companies?"

"It is not as easy as you think." The Senior shook his head. "The profitability of these companies are so high that their market valuations are high as well. The cost to purchase them is astronomical. Besides, many of them are already owned by first-class groups with extremely powerful backgrounds. We won't be able to get our foot in the door."

This was a major problem. The Mars wasn't the only mech that was slated to be equipped with an optional minidrive. The C-Man along with many other expert mechs were awaiting their own modules as well!