The Mech Touch

Light paired well with the Jupiter Project.

This was rather strange as most command-oriented mech pilots usually wanted to attract as little attention as possible.

They spent much of their time on managing their units and polishing their command abilities, so they weren't able to spend as much time on refining their combat skills.

Commander Casella Ingvar was the typical example of such a pilot. She invested a lot of attention on her subordinates. By bonding with them, she was able to channel her power onto them more effectively on the battlefield.

The stronger she became, the more she could uplift the strength of the mechs under her command!

General Ark Larkinson followed a different combat approach. While it was still important for him to take charge of his troops and build up a close superior-subordinate relationship with them, he was not the sort of expert pilot who could directly boost the combat power of his troops.

Instead, his ability reminded Ves a lot of deity cultivation. Somehow, Ark was able to derive power by posing as the 'god' of his own subordinates.

The more they worshiped and revered their commander, the stronger Ark became!

Image played a crucial role as a consequence. Ark had to pay a lot of attention to how he looked, how he presented himself, how he behaved and how he shaped his relationship with his troops.

A handsome and flashy mech could help him strengthen his image by an enormous margin!

Right now, Ark must not be having the best of times. His Travon Exine was a relatively ordinary high-tier expert mech, and completely lost its luster whenever it was standing right next to the Mars!

Even though the mech hadn't been designed for this purpose, the powerful and domineering ace hybrid mech never failed to make a strong impression on the battlefield!

If Ark wanted to do well in the future, then his upcoming machine had to outshine the Mars somehow!

This was an incredibly steep challenge, especially if the Jupiter Project started out as an expert mech as opposed to an ace mech.

Still, as long as the Jupiter Project harnessed the power of light, Ves believed it might be possible to overcome this challenge!

"If we do this, then the Jupiter Project will become the brightest mech on the battlefield." He said. "Subtlety is completely out of the question. Ark's mech will shine like a torch in the dark of space, thereby attracting a huge amount of attention and enemy weapons fire."

"He can take it. His domain and abilities are shaped by a desire to protect his troops by presenting himself as a more attractive target. Turning his mech into a giant light source plays into that role. We can make him so bright that his enemies will forget about attacking the much more fragile mechs that are fighting alongside the Jupiter Project. This should be a desirable result so long as the opposition is not overwhelming."

Though his wife made a lot of sense, Ves worried about whether this would backfire on Ark one day.

If he and his forces ever encountered an overwhelming enemy one day, the blindingly bright Jupiter Project would definitely find it difficult to escape pursuit!

Still, there was no way to avoid this possibility. Ark had long grown accustomed to bearing the greatest and dangers himself. He fueled his growth by constantly subjecting himself to elevated pressure whenever he attracted all of the attention on the battlefield.

Ark attained great success due to his courage, but might also fall one day due to the same reason!

The only thing that Ves could do was to support his uncle as best as possible. A high-tier expert pilot possessed too much conviction to turn his back against his own nature.

Now that Ves and Gloriana had a much better idea of their end goal, they revised the draft design of the Jupiter Project and made a lot of changes.

Ves mostly spent his time on altering the appearance of the Jupiter Project.

Gloriana was not a shabby artist by any means, but Ves possessed a more emotional and intuitive touch.

Both of them worked fairly quickly. The draft design soon took on a different form. The white mech not only contained a lot more light sources that enabled the mech to glow like a star at their brightest intensity, but also came paired with a long and flowing projected cape that could be configured to glow in any color!

Perhaps the most dramatic visual change to the draft design was the complete redesign of the head of the humanoid expert mech.

Gloriana had initially designed it to resemble the heroic visage of General Ark, but Ves had scrapped that and put a white lion head in its place!

The lion shared a great resemblance to Ark's recently acquired companion spirit. Despite his relative youth, Noah already possessed great power due to his principal's high resonance strength.

Ves couldn't imagine how valiant the Jupiter Project might become once it deployed in the field with Noah embedded into the head!

"This... is impressive. I would have never thought about designing the Jupiter Project in this fashion if you hadn't provided your input."

"That's why we always work best when we cooperate with each other." Ves grinned.

The two were not regarded as the Miracle Couple for nothing. They just hadn't been able to collaborate with each other in such an excellent manner as of late due to various distractions.

Now that Ves properly engaged in mech design once more, he soon experienced the joy of working together with a mech designer who complimented him well.

His wife soon furrowed her brows as she continued to stare at the latest draft of the expert mech.

"Our design choices have caused the mech to deviate from its original theme. I do not think we can justify the name of Jupiter anymore. The ancient god of thunder and the skies only shares an indirect relationship with light. We can still add electric weapons to the design so that it can evoke the power of lightning."

Ves shrugged. "Don't bother. It's just a code name for now. We can call the Apollo or something when we are done with our work. For now, it is best to avoid any confusion and stick to a consistent name."

Perhaps they started out the Jupiter Project with the intention of designing an expert mech that could be associated with an ancient king of the gods, but that had changed.

Ves much preferred to orient the Jupiter Project around the element of light. This was not only a much better symbolic fit for General Ark, but also complemented one of his existing design spirits extremely well!

"I originally wanted to install the Golden Cat as the design spirit for the Jupiter Project, but I think I will have to squeeze in the Illustrious One as well. The combination of the two pretty much reflect how General Ark fights his battles."

Ves wondered why he hadn't figured out this combination earlier.

His wife manipulated the projected mech until it highlighted the integrated luminar crystal weapon system.

"Let us get back to the matter at hand. If we want to turn the power of light into a more substantial addition to the Jupiter Project, then you need to develop an attack phase crystal that is not only highly attuned to the Illustrious One, but also fires much stronger and brighter light beams or laser beams. Which one do you prefer, by the way?"

That was not a simple question to answer. There were pros and cons to either beam types.

Laser beams were much more standard. Humanity had built up an enormous understanding of laser weapons. Laser beams were also excellent for long-ranged combat as they struck their targets at the speed of light.

Ironically, light beams didn't actually travel at the same stupendously high speed. This was because light beams did not purely consist of waves or photons anymore.

Calling it a light beam was a misnomer of sorts. Ves didn't know what he was thinking when he settled for the name. Perhaps he had become impressed by how bright the beams had become, but that wasn't even its most important property.

Ves had the sense that it had transformed into a more advanced version of electromagnetic radiation, one that had become more deeply intertwined with spirituality.

The fact that light beams were more effective at damaging spiritual entities and spiritual barriers suggested that it was one of the killer weapons that the luminar race reserved for ancient cultivators!

In any case, light beams were not the best beam type to employ against alien warships as their defenses were largely based on energy shields and phasewater technology.

The only reason why this combination worked particularly well for the Jupiter Project was because General Ark literally grew more powerful when his mech became flashier!

Besides, given the continued proliferation of exotic radiation throughout the Red Ocean, it was only a matter of time before the native aliens started to engage in a form of qi cultivation.

The Jupiter Project would be perfectly positioned to counter any new exotic effects!

"I will have to task the T Institute to focus on cultivating larger batches of light-aspected sympathetic materials." Ves spoke even as he already drafted a note in his mind. "I don't have any suitable hypers at our disposal at the moment, but it shouldn't be too difficult to produce a few basic varieties that I can experiment with. As long as I can successfully develop a fourth generation light beam attack phase crystal, we can proceed with this configuration. The integrated luminar crystal weapon system will become unprecedented."

This must be what the Xenotechnician must feel like whenever he figured out a way to successfully adapt the advantages of alien technology into his products.

The relationship between humans and alien technology was complex and ambiguous.

On the one hand, humans distrusted alien technology and were reluctant to employ it directly.

On the other hand, humans valued the more powerful and useful applications of alien technology too much to abandon them outright!

It was best if humanity was able to reverse engineer incomprehensive alien technology into a more understandable form, but that was not possible for luminar crystal technology.

For better or worse, Ves remained committed to using it in its original alien form even though he still had little idea how all of the alien circuitry worked.

Compared to the debate on how to configure the Jupiter Project for ranged combat, deciding its melee weapon loadout was much simpler.

"General Ark is an all-rounder when it comes to weapons handling." Gloriana said. "He is actually a good fit for a first-class multipurpose mech due to his proficiency in both ranged and melee combat. His control and techniques are inferior to those who hone their weapon skill with great dedication such as Venerable Stark and Venerable Dise, but his ability to derive power from his troops enable him to compensate skill with greater power."

This had great implications for Ark.

Compared to other high-tier expert pilots, he would never be able to match the accuracy of Venerable Davia Stark or be able to match the exquisite techniques of Venerable Dise.

However, he did not have to beat those expert pilots at their own game.

So long as the Jupiter Project received enough empowerment, then the powerful machine could overwhelm most opponents by relying on brute force!

This was why Gloriana had opted to pair the Jupiter Project with both a spear and a plasma sword.

Ves understood the logic of these choices.

A simple transphasic spear could be used to perform charge attacks while also keeping enemies at bay by relying on simple stabs.

A plasma sword was an energy-hungry weapon, but it could burn through defenses like nothing else as long as it channeled enough power!

However, Ves wasn't entirely satisfied with these simple choices. He felt he could do more with them. Was there a way to augment their combat power with hyper materials?