The Mech Touch

The immediate crisis had passed.

The tension in the campus of the Eden Institute deflated considerably after the Ouroboros calmly floated out of sight.

Even though the powerful ace mech still disrupted an occasion organized by the Devos Ancient Clan, it at least behaved in a civil manner and did not escalate any further.

A lot of people relaxed as a result and began to speculate on what was going on. The repercussions of this abrupt and unwelcome intrusion was bound to produce a ripple effect throughout the Terran Alliance.

"The Devos Ancient Clan has been wronged. It must demand compensation or else its prestige will sustain permanent damage."

"1 still cannot determine what General Axelar Streon is thinking. He has worked hard to gain more support, but his lack of control and consideration will set back his plans by a considerable extent."

"There has to be a reason why the general has chosen to break so many rules in order to make contact with Professor Ves Larkinson. What is it about this second-class mech designer that makes him so desirable?"

"I do not know the answer to this question, but it certainly does not hurt to establish a relationship with him. We must grasp the opportunity before us before we lose this chance forever."

The Terrans who witnessed or heard about this incident drew many conclusions from this event. Few if any of them guessed that the Ouroboros had actually been operating unmanned and without direction all of this time.

Neither the Devosans nor the Streons were eager to spread this particular story, so they employed subtle measures to ensure that the prevailing conversations never touched this area.

In the meantime, the leaders from both ancient clans had already scrambled into action. Their negotiating teams were furiously trying to find a way to heal the cracks in their relations and find an amicable way to solve this unwelcome incident.

The Terran ancient clans all had a well-deserved reputation for stability. They strove to maintain it above almost every other priority, so as long as this was under threat, they could become quite motivated!

Fortunately, Ves had stepped in and defused the crisis in a clever way.

From an outside perspective, he had simply presented himself to General Axelar Streon and quietly proposed to open up a dialogue in a more private setting.

Though the Devosans hadn't done anything of note, they did not show too much weakness either, so they managed to avoid the worst-case scenario.

This result produced enough of a basis to find a resolution that reluctantly satisfied both ancient clans.

None of this mattered to Ves at the moment. As soon as he reunited with the Ouroboros, his nature as a mech designer immediately took over.

He forgot about almost everything and became completely obsessed with studying the growth and evolution of what could arguably be his oldest living mech that still existed to this day!

The wonders of time travel enabled a mech designer who was only over 40 years old to get in touch with a work that was over a century old!

This was an incredibly unique and valuable opportunity to any mech designer, but it was ten times more attractive to a mech designer whose design philosophy centered around growth!

Ves had designed and fabricated many mechs over the years.

Each of his works already became remarkable from the start, and a few of them even came into existence as a third order living mech right away.

Yet no matter how clever or how many interesting features his living mechs possessed, they were still newborn in mind and spirit.

This did not bother Ves. What truly mattered was that each of them had the capacity to evolve and grow in so many different ways that they could vastly exceed their existing limits as long as their growth conditions were favorable enough!

The reason why the Ouroboros held so much attraction to him was that it had not only grown for so many years.

What also mattered was that many of the other variables that played a part in its growth were close to ideal!

It was paired with a talented mech pilot that grew rapidly until he reached the threshold to becoming a god pilot.

General Axelar Streon also possessed a lot of affection for the Ouroboros and spent as much time with it as he could manage.

The growing ace mech received regular repairs and upgrades courtesy of some of the best mech designers of the Terran Alliance, especially in its later years.

The fact that the Grand Mender herself had agreed to work on the Ouroboros in a way that carefully preserved its original character had been especially fruitful!

Under all of these favorable conditions, the Ouroboros should have gotten a lot closer to ascending to another layer of existence.

"It's so close, but that is not enough. Perfection demands more."

Ves looked at his old work in regret as his observations essentially confirmed the reason why the Ouroboros failed to bridge the final gap.

Its weak foundation was the root of its problems. The lack of balanced growth and development during its lengthy operation period exacerbated its flaws.

Now, the problem had run so deep that it required far more than a simple fix to restore the Ouroboros.

Ves felt a pang in his heart. If he had been available to adjust the Ouroboros over the years, he could have solved much if not all of its inadequacies.

He could have at least given Axelar Streon and his Terran mech designers valuable pieces of advice so that they could solve the problems by themselves!

"May I come closer?"

The Ouroboros eagerly nodded its twin heads. This was enough for Ves to lift off the air and come dangerously close to one of the most powerful mechs in the entire Terran Alliance.

It was hard to find any other mech within the Terran superstate that was more powerful than the Ouroboros!

No one aside its pilot dared to get close to the machine because it had too many ways to kill people by accident!

From the overpowering spiritual pressure emanating from the second order living mech to the latent fluctuations of its infamous Apocalypse Sword, a highly developed ace mech that was designed to defeat anything short of god mechs was not a teddy bear!

Nonetheless, Ves held such complete trust in the Ouroboros that he approached the machine without fear.

Aspects about the old living machine that had long been buried deep within its psyche had risen to the forefront after making contact with Ves once again.

The ties between them were undeniable. Both of them had undergone so many changes since their last contact, but that did not prevent the maker from recognizing his product and vice versa!

This was a magical sensation and one that was utterly valuable and precious to Ves.

His design flame burned stronger and his design philosophy already began to stir as Ves had already begun to expand his theories on living mechs based on his ongoing observations.

His suspicions were correct! The Ouroboros was a goldmine for studying the later growth stages of his living products!

Even if its flaws prevented Ves from collecting too much relevant data, there were still many commonalities between the Ouroboros and his contemporary works to form broad inferences!

Ves practically blanked out for a few minutes as his entire mind and spirit became preoccupied with processing the rich and priceless data.

It was as if he was reaping the rewards for conducting a longitudinal study that spanned across an entire century!

While many other researchers such as Master Moira Willix were forced to spend many decades if not centuries of their precious time to conduct similar studies, Ves essentially skipped all of the waiting and obtained the raw results right away!

Of course, the data and conclusions he was able to derive from the Ouroboros was not as detailed and complete due to the inability to take precise measurements, but this was not that big of a deal.

As a living mech, the Ouroboros possessed the capacity to remember past events. It still retained a decent amount of data on its past conditions.

Ves could easily access it simply by conveying a request to the living mech.

Perhaps the Ouroboros would never reveal its own secrets to other people, but Ves was an exception!

How can its own progenitor possess any ill intent towards its own product?

Of course, the Ouroboros may be eager to reunite with its maker, but as a long-lived machine, it was anything but naive.

It was because Ves did not hesitate to bare his own spirit to the Ouroboros that the living mech felt relieved to extend its full trust to its progenitor!

Though Ves assumed a lot of risks by exposing his spirit to another entity, he did so without hesitation because his living mechs weren't like other people.

Aside from that, Ves also did not found the Ouroboros to be a threat at all because the machine was clever enough to recognize that its maker may be the only person who could solve its inadequacies.

If the Ouroboros was not able to resolve its flaws, it could never reach a higher life phase, thereby preventing the machine from realizing its ultimate goal!

This overpowering interest ensured that the Ouroboros would never dare to cause harm to its original maker.

It may even take the initiative to protect Ves from all other threats!

Ves found this situation rather absurd. He somehow managed to gain the affection of a weapon of mass destruction in the form of an ace mech. It became more difficult for him to treat it as anything other than an oversized mechanical pet.

This impression strengthened his desire to solve the root of the old living mech's problems.

This was easier said than done.

His expression grew pained when his eyes drew towards the Apocalypse Sword and the Genesis Rifle.

"These weapons are part of the problem, do you know that? They're far too destructive, and it appears that your pilot has not been able to restrain himself."

The powerful living mech conveyed a feeling of regret. The mech shared the same opinion, but it was a pity that it had taken too much time for it to grow smart enough to become aware of its faults.

What held the Ouroboros back was that it had veered too much from its original vision.

Ves named it after the Serpent of Creation and Destruction for good reasons. The machine was supposed to embody both domains in equal measure, and keep them in perfect balance in order to derive greater synergies that resulted in more powerful outcomes!

Though Ves had been a lot less knowledgeable and competent at the time, his core vision for the Ouroboros was still sound and viable enough to bestow it with unlimited potential!

Unfortunately, the requirements to realize all of that potential were also incredibly strict.

For a long time, General Axelar Streon's utilized the Ouroboros as a combat machine without too much further thought on how it would affect his growing machine.

It was in people's nature to treat mechs as combat assets. Their entire purpose revolved around destruction, so as Axelar continued to pilot his living machine, he frequently engaged in combat in various forms!

Whether it was duels against other powerful Terran mechs or more destructive battles that were carefully controlled by the Terran ruling groups most of the time, Axelar and his Ouroboros made their names by sowing more destruction than their rivals!

As the duo became more successful, the design team assigned to the Ourorobos regularly updated its armament with more powerful and destructive weapons.

Since the hero mech could only ever wield two primary armaments, the Terran mech designers always did their utmost to maximize the lethality of the mech sword and mech rifle to the greatest possible extent!

Years of frequent fighting had distorted the growth of the Ouroboros and caused it to veer off-balance.

The consequences of those many eventful decades became obvious to this day. The destruction domain of the Ouroboros had become dominant. Its neglected creation domain received considerably less room for development and had been squeezed into an uncomfortable corner!

"How can Axelar allow this to happen?"

The Ouroboros ratted out its pilot without hesitation and readily conveyed the answer.

It turned out that Axelar had become intoxicated with the destructive combat power of his own living mech.

The more the Ouroboros leaned towards destruction, the greater its offensive power.

This was the basis of Axelar's success over the years!

If his Destroyer sword hadn't become so much more powerful than the ones wielded by his rivals, it wouldn't have been easy for Axelar to grow to become one of the top leaders of the Terran Alliance!

Unfortunately, everything had a price.

Axelar's decision to prioritize short to medium term gains had sabotaged his long-term future.

The imbalance in his powerful ace mech had become so severe that not even Ves could correct it by making straightforward adjustments to its highly distorted spiritual foundation.

The Ouroboros had become too old and strong! It had partially transcended its original nature as a living mech. It had morphed into a different kind of entity that was much stronger but also much more difficult for Ves to change at his current rank.