The Mech Touch



"Why did you call me over, Ves?" Venerable Jannzi asked as soon as she entered the private workshop. "As far as I know, you are still many months away from completing the reborn expert mech that you have promised. If this is another one of your attempts to convince me to pilot a stopgap mech, then forget about it. The Shield of Samar is the only mech in my life."

"It's not that." Ves called as he continued to put the finishing touches on his latest experimental work. "I need your help in testing a new defensive concept that I recently came up with. It is rather complicated and unconventional, but if it works the way I anticipate, I can add a powerful new defensive tool to your upcoming expert mech."

"Won't this cause its completion to be delayed?"

Ves paused his work and turned to face the newly arrived expert pilot. "The progress of the Dullahan Project is not entirely dependent on the workload. It is also affected by other factors such as my personal motivation and passion. You've been with me for a long time. I am sure you have learned how I operate. In short, the more enthusiastic I am about a design project, the more productive I become. My latest experiment here is the latest product of my passion. As long as it is viable, I will become so happy that I can get stuff done 50 percent faster than normal."

Jannzi continued to stare at him with puzzlement in her eyes.

"...I can understand that people tend to work harder if they are happier, but I never heard of anyone boast they can complete a mech design in half the time."

Ves snorted. "You're a protector, not a creator, Jannzi. You don't understand how creators such as myself work. Much of the work related to mech design consists of solving a million different design problems. If I can come up with all of the answers as soon as I have grasped the details of those problems, I won't need a year to complete a complex project. I can complete a high-quality mech design within a month. Reality is not so easy, however. It can take days if not weeks for me to solve the most difficult design problems. One of the most effective ways I can speed that up is to improve my mood and put myself in a better state of mind. You would be surprised how much more productive I become when I work at my peak."

This was how his Hammer of Brilliance worked whenever he whacked it on a person's head. The false inspired state it was able to induce on mech designers and artisans supercharged his mind and massively reduced the difficulty of solving all of those design problems!

The female expert pilot gave up on questioning the validity of Ves' claims and simply took him at his word. He may be a reckless bastard who made crazy decisions every now and then, but he unquestionably knew what he was doing when it came to mechs.

He was a mech designer after all.

"So what is it that you need me to do?" Venerable Jannzi turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

"Give me a few seconds to finish this up. It is a bit big and heavy, but it can't be helped."

Once Ves had completed his last remaining task, he lifted up the item he had been working on and placed it upright onto the floor of the workshop.

The tower shield produced a large thump when its bottom side collided onto a surface. Its appearance immediately caused Venerable Jannzi to freeze as she sensed that there was a connection between herself and the piece of equipment.

Her heart throbbed as a few long-forgotten associations came to the forefront of her mind.

"You… made it out of the materials of my Sammie?"

"Only partially." Ves admitted. "The exterior layers of this shield consist of salvaged first-class alloys. It is what I have placed inside that is important. I designed and created over a dozen discrete pieces of Unending alloy and put them into the center of this tower shield in an array. I believe what you are sensing right now is an echo of the true resonance that you used to produce when you interfaced with your old expert mech. The Shield of Samar may be gone, but its remains still contain a trace of its existence."

He never really paid too much attention to this, but it became extremely obvious now that Ves had been studying the primordial human bones for a while now. The broken pieces of debris of the expert space knight had yet to be cleansed by the power of time!

Jannzi stepped closer and reached out to touch the front surface of the power shield. It featured an odd metallic chromatic facing that made it look as if she was looking at a prop for a fantastical drama show.

"What is this? What am I supposed to do with this? Don't tell me you plan to make a bigger version of this ridiculous shield for my new expert mech!"

"Hey, please hear me out before you pass any judgment! I swear it will be useful to you! Think about it, Jannzi. You lost your precious Shield of Samar after you got beaten by the Skorpion Kommando."

The expert pilot immediately scowled. The mere mention of that hated Fridayman high-tier expert mech triggered her trauma!

"Are you telling me that it was my fault that I lost against that mech?!"

"Calm down, Jannzi! I am not passing judgment on your skills. I am sure you did your best and all! The circumstances weren't ideal back then, and one of the greatest shortcomings was that the defensive power of your Shield of Samar wasn't adequate enough to resist the phasewater-infused acid released by the Skorpion Kommando. This is a problem relating to the configuration of your expert mech. While we cannot change the past, we can make sure that a tragedy like this will never happen in the future. This is why I am working hard to develop an experimental new physical shield for your upcoming expert mech that should be able to resist a lot more attacks."

His explanation along with his earnest tone caused Venerable Jannzi to put away her irritation and consider his idea more seriously.

"If you have a fancy new idea for a tower shield for my mech, why don't you fabricate one that is scaled for a mech?"

"It's really expensive." He told her. "This is a piece of equipment that is tailor made for you and only you. None of our other expert mechs are defensive in nature. They are completely unsuited to carry a tower shield, and even if they do, their pilots won't be able to interface with it properly. Forget about all of that. Right now, I need you to keep this scale reproduction around your person and spend a few hours every day trying to resonate with it and make it do all kinds of different stuff."

"I can't resonate with equipment without interfacing with an expert mech, did you forget that already, Ves? I am not a swordmaster like Ketis who can resonate with any sword I hold in my hands."

"I'm not that stupid. I know what you can and cannot do. What you have just described is valid as long as we are talking about true resonance. My upcoming Rainbow Shield doesn't contain any resonating exotics. Instead, the Unending alloy that I plan to integrate inside its structure will serve as prime materials that can enable you to generate prime resonance."

The female expert pilot looked lost at this point. It had been a long time since she last did anything related to prime resonance. She also didn't know what she was supposed to do with it outside of piloting a mech.

Ves sighed. "Look, let me give you a little show. Watch carefully and expand your senses."

He concentrated his mind and leveraged his considerably powerful Spirituality to connect with the Unending alloy blocks that he had integrated in the man-sized prototype tower shield.

Its shimmering chromatic surface grew a little brighter as various different forms of spiritual energy began to activate!

Jannzi could feel slight effects from the shield that reminded her of the glows of many different design spirits. From the Solemn Guardian to Titania, the experimental product contained the energies taken from numerous entities!

While the light show was entertaining, the expert pilot didn't see the point in this. How was making the shield light up in different colors supposed to increase her defenses?

"I know what you are thinking." Ves said as he stopped trying to mess around with the shield. "It looks as if this is a complete waste of time, but it isn't. The reason why I can't do anything special with it is because I am a mech designer. I theorize that Object 431 can produce a completely different effect when it is held and used by an expert pilot and you in particular."

"I am an expert pilot, not a shieldmaster or whatever."

"Prime resonance doesn't necessarily require the medium of a neural interface in order to work. Trust me. I invented this phenomenon, so I am pretty confident about this. Just give it a try."

He passed 'Object 431' over to the Larkinson expert pilot. Jannzi continued to remain skeptical as she looped her arm through the straps that Ves had added onto the rear facing.

The shield was not small, and it was made out of solid alloys. It was difficult for Jannzi to lift it up, let alone carry it around all day.

"I can lighten the burden if it is too much for you." Ves proposed as she saw that Jannzi was struggling to handle the tower shield. "I can make a few antigrav modules and attach it onto your shield to reduce its effective weight."

"Please do so. I am afraid that the only other way I can carry it around is to wear a suit of powered combat armor."

"You can do that as well if you want."

Jannzi grew impatient. "Let's leave that for later. Can you tell me what I need to do in order to make effective use of this shield?"

"Do you remember the lightshow I created earlier? Let's start with that. Try to connect to the energies that the different design spirits have donated."

It took less time and effort for Jannzi to be able to replicate what Ves had done. Though her spiritual perception and sensitivity was nowhere close to him, she could still fall back to her piloting experience to pull off a similar feat.

"Now what?"

"Leverage your willpower. Don't do so blindly. Try to channel it to produce a specific result. For example, visualize your mind grasping a clump of energy so that you can shape it into a flat surface. Then try to infuse it with your willpower and think really hard about wanting to protect your shield, yourself, and the clansmen behind you from damage. The choice of energies that you draw upon is extremely important. I suggest that you start with performing this visualization trick with the spiritual energy that you are most familiar with. You should have the greatest compatibility with the energy donated by Qilanxo."

She tried to do what he instructed. It was not too difficult for her to follow the steps he described. She became surprised that she was able to do all of this without piloting a mech, but he was being accurate when he claimed that prime resonance operated by a different set of rules.

Though the energy bestowed by Qilanxo felt a little flat and hollow to her force of will, her deep familiarity with the former exobeast enabled her to manipulate it without too much hindrance.

Soon enough, a near-transparent energy shield appeared above the tower shield's surface. It became more difficult to maintain it the more she spread it out into a flat surface.

"What now?" She asked as she began to strain from the mental exertion.

"Stay still." Ves instructed before he promptly picked up a kinetic pistol from his work table and fired a single round onto the newly projected energy shield!

What surprised the both of them was that the thin and seemingly weak energy shield actually bounced away the physical projectile without striking the actual surface of Object 431!

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

"Hahahaha! I did it! It works!"

"You didn't know it would work?!"

"I was confident in my theories, hahaha!"

"That's not good enough!"