The Mech Touch

Ves finally left the secure chamber after receiving a stern reminder to keep his mouth shut.

He remained in deep thought as he slowly left the MTA's branch headquarters on Davute VII and shuttled back to the Cat Nest.

Once he returned to his Royal Mansion, he put Lucky on his lap and continued to contemplate on all of the revelations that he received.

"Meow?"

"Sorry, Lucky. I can't divulge what I have obtained today. You'll have to keep your curiosity in check this time."

"Meow!"

As his gem cat began to grow a little grumpy again, Ves completely ignored the feelings of his pet as he thought of the many implications of what he learned.

One of the biggest takeaways from his recent meeting was that god pilots were truly worth all of the hype.

Certainly, their combat prowess was unmatched and they could easily demolish entire warfleets depending on their specialties and the capabilities of their god mechs.

He never expected that mech designers such as Master Dervidian put more weight on their ability to create materials and make the most unlikeliest processes possible!

Ves fully understood why the MTA obsessed so much over god pilots. They were strategic assets that had the power to strengthen an entire civilization!

Dervidian explicitly attributed the initial entry to the Red Ocean to the ability for god pilots to create phasewater!

If god pilots could create phasewater, then they could easily create other materials that Ves wanted but could never attain.

He already started to make a wish list of the materials he desperately needed to create better and more powerful mechs.

"I could use more P-stones, B-stones, F-stones and Unending alloy…"

The lack of access to these spiritually reactive materials was a great heartache to him. Though he tasked both his own personnel to scour for any locally available resources that matched the properties of what he already possessed, none of his people found any whisper of what he sought!

He also asked the MTA to watch out for the same materials, but the mechers hadn't sent any word to him so far. Perhaps they already forgot about his request or simply did not rank it high in their enormous list of priorities.

It would have been nice if he had access to his own personal god pilot.

He frowned.

"It will take a long time before any of my subordinates can get within throwing distance of this rank."

Venerable Joshua, Venerable Jannzi and Venerable Casella were simply too young and tender! The distance between them and the likes of Divine Hussain Albedo was as large as the distance between the Milky Way and the Red Ocean!

"Wait, I don't need to rely on my own mech pilots…"

The recent advancement of Patriarch Reginald Cross was a massive event that was already rippling throughout Davute and beyond.

Ace pilots were incredibly powerful and they were particularly valued for their ability to defend critical star systems just like god pilots.

As such, many parties in Davute and beyond wanted to secure an accord with the Cross Clan!

Ves even heard that there were groups and companies who were willing to pay thousands to tens of thousands of MTA credits just to obtain a year-long guarantee of protection from Patriarch Reginald Cross!

"Damn, it's so easy for him to earn lots of money!"

While Ves and his Design Department had to invest tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of man-hours into designing technologically sophisticated mechs for the market, Patriarch Reginald only needed to make a simple promise before proceeding to go about his day as usual!

The chances that Reginald actually needed to take action was incredibly low. Nobody was a fool. Ace pilots always kept their word so they would definitely go all out in order to abide by their commitments. The destruction that they could unleash was unpredictable and a battle could easily turn into a catastrophe.

Therefore, what all of those organizations and companies were actually trying to obtain through their actions was virtual immunity.

Few human groups dared to hit anyone under the protection of an ace pilot!

The only serious threat came from alien threats who did not play by the rules of humanity. However, Ves already heard that the Crossers took that into account.

Patriarch Reginald himself refused to provide any guarantees to anyone in case of an alien incursion!

This was because he knew quite well that if a powerful alien threat ever attacked the entire Davute System, his Cross Clan would need all the help it could get to evacuate from the warzone!

"Smart."

Leaving the Cross Clan's rapid rise in fortune aside, the most significant implication of Reginald's successful advancement was that he was much closer to becoming a god pilot than anyone else in the Golden Skull Alliance!

Ves did not know how long it would take for the Cross Patriarch to reach the limit of his current rank and become eligible to undergo his third and most dangerous apotheosis, but he suspected that it would definitely not take too long!

As long as Reginald continued to work hard and do his utmost to cross the bridge of life and death, Ves could finally gain access to his own human factory that can pump out all of the P-stones and Unending alloy as he wished!

"I will need to pay more attention to his progression."

It was well worth it to pay more attention to the Mars and continue to offer his assistance in tweaking it and upgrading it. After all, the stronger the mech, the stronger the mech pilot!

After deciding to provide more support to Patriarch Reginald, Ves shifted his thoughts to his future plans.

Ever since he discovered that Divine Hussain Albedo possessed the unique capability to upgrade a person's genetic aptitude, a growing part of Ves wanted to challenge this monopoly.

This was an absolutely crazy notion!

No Journeyman would ever think about challenging a god pilot by stealing the supremely powerful warrior's routine!

Yet Ves was different!

His amazing successes along with his growing mastery of spiritual engineering gave him a hint of confidence that he might be able to replicate a feat that the entire MTA had failed to do for a long time.

"I just need a good starting point."

Ves quickly came up with multiple different research directions, some of which were more hopeful than others.

There was one solution that he believed may be the most assured way to reproduce Divine Albedo's unique ability.

"If I can harvest a portion of his power, I can use it as an ingredient for a brand new design spirit!"

Ves could already imagine it! The spiritual product that he envisioned in his mind would be the ideal mech pilot, one that best represented and stood up for this profession!

This design spirit might not possess the strongest attacks such as Helena, but the new entity would definitely provide the biggest boost to the growth and evolution of mech pilots!

"Wait, do I even need to create a new design spirit? What if I merge this special ingredient with one of my existing ones?"

Now that he thought about it, the Quint already fulfilled a part of this job description. Though it was not a human mech pilot itself, the mech interacted with so many mech pilots that it definitely gained a deep understanding of how they worked!

As long as Ves was able to obtain a shard of Divine Albedo's awesome force of will or whatever it turned into at the god pilot stage, he could definitely transform the Quint into the patron spirit of mech pilots!

"All of this sounds great, but how am I supposed to satisfy the most essential requirement?"

Ves did not dare to bring up his ludicrous idea to Master Dervidian. The Transhumanists idolized Divine Albedo so much that they would consider any notion of harming him or stealing his power to be sacrilege!

That was despite the fact that many Transhumanists were supposed to be intelligent and open-minded mech designers!

"Ugh. Forget about it. There is no way that this can happen."

The second-most viable idea he came up with was to imitate Divine Albedo's ability by developing a homegrown version.

Now that he knew that Genetic Aptitude Reparation was actually real, he was a bit more confident that he could develop a bootleg version of it by relying on his unorthodox specialties.

However, without an appropriate spiritual ingredient or reference, it would be extremely hard for him to develop this solution.

"I can't just create a design spirit that can magically do what I want."

The design spirit needed actual substance in order to accomplish a specific task. Not only did it need to possess the right spiritual attributes, it also had to possess at least some theory in order to perform a complicated feat.

Ves would need to obtain ingredients related to biology, neurology, interfacing and other related subjects.

He also needed to develop a theoretical framework that could make this happen.

"That last part is the biggest problem. I barely know anything about the science of neural interfacing!"

Though he managed to learn the bare basics of this sensitive field, he was hardly an authority on this subject.

"If I truly want to make this happen, I will need to cooperate with a top research team that knows everything about neural interfacing and genetic aptitude."

This requirement was almost just as harsh as trying to harvest a fragment from a god pilot!

Ves grew more pessimistic as he thought of all of the hurdles he needed to overcome.

Developing his own version of Genetic Aptitude Reparation would take too long and require too much work at this rate. It was completely unfeasible, especially since he did not have the time to work on such a difficult research project.

"Forget about it." He shook his head in surrender. "Maybe I should just wait until I stumble upon the right materials or inspiration.

He came up with several other ways in which he might possibly be able to replicate Divine Albedo's unique method.

They ranged from experimenting with Venerable Joshua's life domain to seeking out a phase whale in order to conduct a mutual exchange on biotechnology, but none of these plans sounded reliable.

In the end, it all came down to the fact that Ves was not qualified enough to tackle this problem.

"It is useless to think more about it. Let's wait until my situation changes for better."

Rather than trying to research the impossible, it was a lot more realistic to accumulate 1 billion MTA merits.

He had managed to earn over 200 million MTA merits before, and that was before the Golden Skull Alliance underwent a comprehensive upgrade and expansion phase.

While he didn't want to think about it before, now that the Cross Clan had gained a powerful ace pilot, Ves belatedly realized that he no longer needed to act as timid as before.

As long as he could convince Patriarch Reginald to support his schemes, Ves could take much bolder risks!

"It would be a waste to leave an ace pilot in reserve. All of that combat power is just begging to get used!"

If Ves had the current version of Patriarch Reginald and the Mars at his side, he and his allies would have been able to conquer all of Purgatory!

"This is the right way to exploit the power of an ace pilot!"

The power of Patriarch Reginald was much stronger than before and the Mars was expressly designed to defeat alien warships.

This meant that Ves did not have to fear as many enemies as before!

"There's no way I can earn a billion credits by sitting here in Davute and conducting research behind closed doors. I need to get back out into the deep frontier and plunder as much phasewater as possible!"

Even if it was too difficult to stumble upon another phase whale enclave, there were bound to be other alien settlements and strongholds that contained a lot of riches.

The profits of raiding these places would be unimaginably high!

Now that he gained a new goal, Ves completely set his mind on preparing for an extensive expedition that would take the Golden Skull Alliance across the new frontier!

All thoughts about relying on peaceful accumulation and steady sales had gone out of his head.

Though a part of him enjoyed the stability and comfort of living in Davute, the wild streak within him could not be suppressed now that he was driven by a new purpose.

"I'm not an ordinary mech designer." He reminded himself. "I'm an explorer and a wanderer. The stars are calling out to me. The Red Ocean has so much more to offer. There is no reason why I should hole up in Davute and Krakatoa."

He had made a firm decision. Once the Golden Skull Alliance completed its years-long upgrade and rebuilding plans, he would strongly advocate for the expeditionary fleet to embark on the biggest grand expedition to date!

Whether he would actually wish to exchange 1 billion MTA merits for a chance to upgrade one of children's genetic aptitude or not, it was always useful to stock up on this exclusive currency.

The MTA had so many goodies to offer that Ves would never be able to pay for it all. His talk with Master Dervidian also revealed to him that the mechers held back a lot of exclusive goods and services that were even more precious.

After all, there were a lot of god pilots, each of which possessed their own special capabilities. 

Perhaps a handful of them offered a good or service that Ves desperately needed in order to progress his design philosophy!

"I have to learn what they can all do! Where can I find more news about these amazing people?!"