The Mech Touch



Holding the Heavensword was literally the opportunity of a lifetime to Ketis.

Who could ever claim to have seen a grand work up close, let alone touching it with his or her bare skin?

The newly advanced swordmaster deeply realized that this honor and privilege would have unimaginable benefits to her future work.

Ketis had never handled such high-level swords in the past. Her vision was much more modest due to spending a long time working with humble third-class mechs and swords.

Though she knew that her double advancement along with her new connections to the Heavensword Association would help her elevate her work, her impression of what she could produce at her limit had always been vague and insubstantial.

Not anymore.

From the moment she held a grand work of unsurpassed quality and power, Ketis gained a much clearer idea on what skills and abilities she needed to acquire to make her own swords of unsurpassed might and capability!

Though she wanted to study the Heavensword for a while longer, she noticed that her willpower was not able to protect her from getting tainted by the massive degree of extraordinary power it contained.

Even when the Heavensword had entered into a dormant state where its activity levels were low, the grand work couldn't help but affect the environment and everyone inside it. Such power was impossible to contain.

Ketis knew enough about her craft to know that the reason why the Heavensword did not completely possess the majesty of a grand work was due to other factors.

As she continued to hold the weapon, she had the impression that it used to be a lot grander in the past, but that it suffered a lot of damage that caused it to fall back into a crippled state.

She could not fathom how it was possible to damage such a transcendent work of craftsmanship.

The Heavensword completely defied ordinary standards. Its toughness was off the charts as its material properties could not be formulated by any production machine in existence today!

She spent a little more thought on examining the huge pool of energy that powered its remarkable state and enhanced its lethality to an insanely high level.

The ubiquitous energy contained within the pool was completely uniform and reminded Ketis a lot of its current wielder and the blissful floating garden environment.

This… heavenly energy was completely different from all of the other energies that Ketis had tangled with before in the Larkinson Clan.

Ketis imagined that if she was able to harness this energy and master it to the highest degree, she could literally create a heaven where the dead could go and enjoy paradise.

She could also harness this energy to create a slice of heaven in normal space. Each swing of the blade would allow her to bring down heaven's mercy or wrath depending on her intentions!

"Amazing." She gasped as she learned all that she could of this extremely potent type of energy.

Unfortunately, the heavenly energy that saturated the grand work proved to be too dangerous and corrosive to Ketis.

She had been unable to determine all of the details about the massive energy pool and how she could create a smaller version of it for her own swords.

Her expression worsened as she forced herself to return the Heavensword to its rightful wielder.

The pressure it exerted on her mind had faded by a considerable margin, but the loss of the Heavensword also caused her to feel a gaping hole in her heart.

She shook her head and utilized Sharpie to cleanse any sequelae the Heavensword had inadvertently left behind during their moments of contact.

The saint had sheathed his legendary weapon by now, causing the surrounding air to become a lot more pleasant.

"Thank you… for letting me experience this great and wonderful sword." Ketis sincerely said to the leader of the Heavensword Association. "I have learned a lot today. My visit to your state has given me far more gains than I could have hoped."

"It is my pleasure, young woman. Your love for swords is genuine and your talents should not remain buried in the galactic rim. Our people and our state expect much from you. With your talents and experiences, you are destined to soar into the heavens. Even the Heavensword holds this opinion."

"Are you sure about that, sir?" Ketis responded with a skeptical expression. "When I held your weapon, I constantly felt it was testing me and judging me. It bared its own state to me, but it did not do so without making sure I was good enough to behold its excellence."

"Trust me, Ketis, the Heavensword would have made its displeasure known if you were less than worthy."

"I see. Can I ask you a question, sir?"

"You may do so. That is one of the purposes of this meeting. We do not want anyone to remark that a swordmaster who successfully inherited our traditions is completely ignorant of what we do and what we stand for. You are a citizen of our state. Do not forget that, Swordmaster Ketis."

She smiled. A burst of warmth had sprung in her heart. Though she would always be a Swordmaiden and a Larkinson first, she did not mind getting adopted by another group of people.

The premise was that her loyalties never clashed one day.

The woman turned her attention back to the question that bothered her the most at the moment.

"According to my observations, the Heavensword… is in a crippled state." She stated the truth as she saw it. "I truly do not know how powerful grand works ought to be, but this is not it. The sword barely looks better than a masterwork on the surface, but this is impossible. Whoever forged this weapon was a true talent in the art of swordsmithing. Such an impressive sword maker would not limit himself and his work to this level."

The Heavensword Saint let out an expressive sigh. "The full story is clouded and lost in myth. The short version of its story is that the Heavensword is too old. It has outlived its wielder and the eras where it was meant to be used. Much has changed. We live in a time where mechs and sophisticated technology have become humanity's latest talismans. The inheritors of the weapon all proved to be too weak and inadequate to make use of it. They suffered early deaths as they proved incapable of wielding such a powerful relic."

Ketis wanted to learn more details, but the Heavensword Saint exhibited great restraint in the face of her repeated inquiries.

She could only conclude that at the time of its making, the Heavensword relied on a powerful energy source or a unique resource to power its prodigious might.

Everything was fine as long as the Heavensword's immense hunger was sated, but as the years went by, humanity's circumstances changed in a drastic manner that completely toppled the old paradigms.

The Heavensword no longer enjoyed the luxurious treatment it received before. Without obtaining the sustenance it needed to utilize its slice of heaven to the fullest, it could do little but to enter into an emergency low maintenance state.

Its demand for sustenance had dropped dramatically, but that also led to its current lethargic state.

"The Heavensword is sleeping!"

"Correct." The saint replied. "It is one of the reasons why it is still able to exist for so long. There are sources in our library that tell of the existence of many more legendary swords and weapons. All of them are lost, and none of them were lucky enough to be able to replicate the survival and self-defensive tactics employed by the Heavensword. Many unique and priceless swords that once enriched our race have never been able to go down on the battlefield as they were meant to, but instead crumbled to dust as they failed to resist the corrosion of time and the changing of the eras."

A chill ran through Ketis' spine. She tried to imagine what would become of her works one day. Would her greatsword and her mechs crumble helplessly over time as well?

Her mass production works would probably get used and recycled within a generation or two, but her better and more premium works should last considerably longer.

Mechs could not last forever. It took extreme care and maintenance to keep them intact. Most people simply did not have the money or the desire to keep around old and outdated mechs.

Swords were easier to maintain and continued to hold their value in the long term as long as they were good enough.

Ketis could easily imagine her best swords becoming prized relics in a couple of generations from now. Even if she had improved her techniques and transitioned to forging first-class swords, her older works should still hold a lot of practical and historical value among many different people.

It became exponentially less likely that her premium works would stick around for longer than that. Technology and cost no longer became the deciding factors anymore.

The only variable that mattered was whether enough people cared about her old works to preserve them over time.

Ketis could not even recall off the top of her head if she had ever viewed a work that had been made more than a millenia ago. She simply didn't care to visit the old and stuffy museums that showcased the swords, rifles and other gadgets that humans made use of several thousand years ago. They had little to no impact on her life in the modern day.

When she learned from Ves, she also acquired his forward-thinking perspective. Rather than looking back and remaining stuck in the past, she would rather look forward and work towards a more prosperous future!

Yet even she couldn't foresee what would happen to her work after several millennia had gone by. It was likely that she would have long passed away by then. Her family and friends would have entered the grave as well, which meant that the amount of people who still remembered who she was on a personal basis would no longer be around anymore.

Only the greatest and most impactful works had the qualifications to be preserved by the descendants of today's generation of humans.

Ketis shifted her eyes towards the Heavensword which had already returned to its sheath.

Even though Ketis and everyone else knew nothing about its maker and possess scant little clues about its wielder, a sword as exceptional as this had forcibly managed to survive an uncountable amount of ages by virtue of its astounding power and craftsmanship alone!

For a moment, Ketis understood why Gloriana obsessed so much about chasing after perfection and maximizing the quality of her mechs.

It was because raising the quality to a transcendent level was the most straightforward way to ensure that her works would shed their temporal status and gain a more timeless property.

They became immortal.

She developed a new ambition at this time. Her exposure to the Heavensword did not generate the desire to gain possession of this magnificent grand work herself.

As powerful and exquisite as this ancient relic may be, her swordsmanship diverged too much from its original wielder.

What she wanted to do instead was to forge a grand work that was fully suitable to wielded by herself!

As a mech designer and an engineer, Ketis understood deeply that only a custom job would suit her best!

This way, she could also ensure that if she ever created such a powerful artifact, she could fully harness its might instead of allowing the domineering weapon to control its own wielder.

The more Ketis thought about forging an eternal blade, the more her passion and excitement amplified her will and desire!

She had a much more concrete idea on how to go forward now. She bowed deeper in front of the Heavensword Saint or rather the ancient weapon itself in gratitude.

"Thank you… for showing me what swords can truly become." She said with utter sincerity in her voice. "While I can't promise I will ever become good enough to forge a younger brother or sister in my lifetime, I will do my damned best to make it so that humans can still create timeless weapons such as yourself!"

For a moment, the Heavensword rattled in its sheath. Powerful light shone from the blade and transformed into a ball of heavenly light.

This ball hovered over the heads of both sword practitioners before it sank into Ketis' body!