The Mech Touch

As a mech designer, Ves acquired a fascination for adapting mechs to the unique characteristics and preferences of mech pilots.

Spending lots of time with Gloriana and learning a couple of tricks of her trade deepened his appreciation for custom mechs.

High-ranking mechs were all personalized by definition. The configuration of all of their customized aspects resulted in a unique machine that was extremely unlikely to exist in any other place or time.

What further differentiated them was that their mech designers exerted a large influence on the design style and the traits of the mechs in question.

Every expert mech and every ace mech existed as a unique marker in the long history of the mech industry.

As Ves, Patriarch Reginald and Master Benedict continued to stare at the spotty image of the Neo Amadeus, they began to make all kinds of associations based on their backgrounds.

Master Benedict frowned in frustration. "This capture is taken at extreme range. While I can understand why it is difficult to get within this range of the most sensitive combat asset in the Pima System, I would have appreciated it if the spy could get 20 percent closer or brought a larger sensor. I could probably discern at least twice as many details if that was the case."

"It is already a miracle that the spy could grasp this window of opportunity." Ves said. "Getting any closer will likely trigger the ace pilot's vigilance. There will be no second attempts."

"A shame."

Obtaining a fuzzy image was better than nothing. The Gauge Dynasty had done a good job at hiding their latest trump card.

"I think it might be best if we start from figuring out the mech designers who participated in the ace mech's development." Ves spoke. "Who designed the Neo Amadeus?"

Master Benedict smirked. "I can answer that. I'm quite familiar with the design styles and design philosophies of the Masters of the Friday Coalition. I can identify the distinctive characteristics of at least three Masters. For a machine of this caliber, at least two more Masters are also involved, but I believe their work is applied to the internals of the Neo Amadeus."

The new Master Mech Designer paused for a moment as he carefully evaluated the design of the ace mech.

"There are plenty of Masters in the Friday Coalition, but the amount in the Gauge Dynasty is not as big. Of this group, only a small proportion have the seniority, experience and competences to lead the design of an ace mech. As such, I am fairly confident about the identity of the lead designer of the Neo Amadeus."

"Who is it, Benedict?"

"Master Ishi Veldam, otherwise known as the Multi-Armed Designer."

Ves recalled the information he read about the Gauge Dynasty's eminent mech designers.

"Master Ishi Veldam was more than 280 years old and had become one of the most senior surviving mech designers of the Friday Coalition." Benedict said with obvious familiarity and respect in his tone. "Her prestige was great and she had designed so many different mechs that she has made a considerable mark in the Sundered Phalanx. She has always specialized in designing offensive melee mechs, most particularly ones that wield multiple weapons at the same time."

Benedict waved his hand, causing the central projector to display a sample of the Multi-Armed Designer's work.

Patriarch Reginald quickly became intrigued as the commercial and military mechs on display all wielded at least two weapons in the same hand.

Most of them wielded swords but there were also ones that carried a combination of axes, maces, picks and spears.

One of Ves' personal favorites was an expert mech that wielded a pair of morningstars.

The skill and control required to pilot such a mech was stupendously high!

In fact, this was one of the common themes of the Multi-Armed Designer's work. Her mech designs all demanded greater skill and mastery over weapons in order to make the most out of their expanded options.

As far as dual-wielding mechs went, the ones designed by Master Veldam are certainly the best and most advanced that Ves had ever seen!

"Dual-wielding mechs is not what Master Veldam is famed for." Benedict told the other two. "The actual reason why she gained her extra moniker is her successful research and implementation of quadruple-armed and sextuple-armed humanoid mechs."

The projected slideshow changed to display all manner of larger and odder mechs.

What immediately stood out was that the humanoid mechs all featured four arms or six arms!

More limbs meant that the mech was able to wield more weapons at once!

When these powerful monsters could unleash their full potential, they could easily overwhelm multiple conventional melee mechs at once!

Of course, the downsides were also obvious. The frames of the multi-limbed mechs needed to be considerably larger and more massive in order to support so many additional arms.

The extra arms themselves also couldn't be too strong because there simply wasn't enough capacity to channel as much strength to so many simultaneous limbs.

Each pair of limbs added a massive load on the mech, which meant that the mech parts needed to be tougher and made out of higher-quality materials in order to prevent the machine from wearing out prematurely. All of this significantly amplified the cost of production.

However, the biggest downside of these four-armed mechs and six-armed mechs was that it took extreme training for mech pilots to master their usage!

Even if the Gauge Dynasty poured lots of money into the Sundered Phalanx, it was impossible to raise too many mech units centered around multi-limbed mechs because there weren't enough talented mech pilots that could meet the insanely high control requirements!

In fact, without specialized augmentations, ordinary mech pilots could forget about piloting these humanoid monsters!

"Master Veldam has a great desire to design the strongest and most unbeatable offensive humanoid melee mechs. It is a must for her work to be able to defeat any other mech in a close engagement." Master Benedict continued to share his understanding. "In her mind, that equates to humanoid mechs with additional limbs. Humans such as you and I may be limited in how many swords we can wield due to our physical limitations, but technology always has answers."

It took a lot of daring to commit to the design of four-armed and six-armed humanoid mechs. Most other mech designers wouldn't even dream about designing them because the downsides were too great.

What Master Veldam essentially sought to accomplish was to reverse this truth and make it so that the advantages of these odd machines far outweighed the costs!

So far, it appeared that the Multi-Armed Designer managed to achieve her goal when it came to high-end mechs.

The greater the design budget and skill of the mech pilot, the more these multi-limbed humanoid mechs demonstrated their incredible combat power in combat!

Master Benedict most certainly appreciated this persistence. "There have always been many skeptics that have always questioned whether it is worthwhile for the Sundered Phalanx to invest in Master Veldam's work, but the Komodo War vindicated her design approach. I believe that might also be one of the reasons why the Gauge Dynasty has agreed to let her take charge of the development of the Neo Amadeus."

Everyone turned their attention back to the spotty image of the Gauge Dynasty's latest ace mech.

Now that Ves had seen plenty of images of the Multi-Armed Designer's work, he could easily spot a few common design elements in the exterior Neo Amadeus. From the proportions of the limbs to the shape of the torso, it could definitely fit into Master Veldam's mech catalog.

There was just one incongruity, though.

Ves stated the obvious. "For a Master Mech Designer who is crazy about quadruple-limbed mechs and sextuple-limbed mechs, it's kind of odd that her most powerful and advanced work to date only comes with a single pair of arms. With her pattern of adding more pairs of arms as her expert mechs become more high-end, I would have expected the Neo Amadeus to come with eight, ten or even twelve arms!"

This was not as ridiculous as it sounded. Ace mechs were even further detached from the normal limitations of mechs. Money solved many problems, and as mech pilots became more superhuman as they advanced up the ranks, they could effectively control much more complex mech systems.

As such, if Master Veldam truly wanted to design an ace mech with twelve whopping arms, then she should easily be able to do so! Ves could not understand why someone with her dreams and ambitions would settle for designing a more conventional and boring swordsman mech.

"This is odd. The Neo Amadeus doesn't quite match with Master Veldam's pattern." Ves spoke. "Is this because she has to compromise with the other Masters in her design team or is it because Saint Jeremiah Gauge insists on piloting a 'simple' swordsman mech?"

As Patriarch Reginald took in all of the information and studied the snapshot of the Neo Amadeus with his own eyes, he formed his own judgment.

"I have a theory." He began. "From my impression, Jeremiah is a warrior who knows what he wants. His discipline and training throughout the years has always focused on mastering his swordsmanship. His expert mechs only ever carried a single sword in battle because he believed it is pointless to utilize other weapons when he still has to master the usage of a single weapon. Now that he has become a Saint, the story is different. If he sees his time as an expert pilot as a preparation period for the next stage, then his time as an ace pilot is his breakout period. This is what he has been working towards!"

Ves widened his eyes. He understood what Patriarch Reginald was saying. Jeremiah Gauge essentially treated his time as an expert pilot as an extremely long training period.

The man could have exhibited more strength on the battlefield by piloting more advanced expert mechs, but he stuck to simpler designs all this time because he didn't think he was good enough to deserve all of that luxury.

The implication of this theory was that Jeremiah Gauge somehow became assured that he would advance to ace pilot early on in his career.

Perhaps his exchange to the Heavensword Association and his subsequent pattern of piloting simple swordsman mechs was all part of a 100-year long training plan that was meant to transform him into the ultimate swordsman mech pilot of the Friday Coalition!

If Jeremiah Gauge never succeeded in becoming a Saint, then much of his hard work and effort would eventually amount to nothing. It took a lot of guts for him to stick to this deliberate training strategy to the end, especially when the Komodo War broke out and forced him to fight against one powerful Hexer expert pilot after another!

Master Benedict felt that Reginald's theory made sense. "It would explain why the Multi-Armed Mech Designer led the design project that resulted in the Neo Amadeus. If Saint Jeremiah Gauge wanted to pilot a more conventional ace swordsman mech, then there are several other Masters that are much more appropriate for the job. Instead, Master Veldam ended up in charge."

"What… does that mean?" Ves asked in confusion.

"It means… the Neo Amadeus may be a multi-limbed mech after all. The Neo Amadeus would never carry so many weapons without a reason." Benedict said as he gained a whole new appreciation of the enemy ace mech.

"How? I don't see any extra arms on this frame. Wait, is this ace mech capable of wielding additional swords and daggers by relying on miniaturized arms that are ordinary hidden inside the frame?"

That didn't entirely make sense. The mech looked too lean for that. If the arms were too small and thin, then it would have been far too easy to break them in half.

"No." Patriarch Reginald said. "I think I get it now. The reason why it carries so many swords and daggers is because that is probably the limit that Saint Jeremiah Gauge can control to a strong enough degree. Any more and his concentration and strength exertion will drop to an unacceptable level."

"Wait! You mean…!?"

"This guy doesn't need to rely on the physical limbs of his ace mech at all. His Saint Kingdom has become his arms!"