The Mech Touch

During the initial test of the Greenaxe, Ves and Gloriana mostly focused their attention on different aspects of their work.

Gloriana mainly paid attention to the parameters related to the second generation god body method.

While it was impossible for the Greenaxe to promote the quality of any of its parts to masterwork quality within a day, she could still gather a decent amount of useful data from this initial test.

One of her goals was to determine if she had made any mistakes or suboptimal decisions relating to the distribution of hyper material nodes.

She had attempted to spread them out as evenly and rationally as possible. Applying too many of them on a mech frame took up valuable capacity and increased the cost of the design. Applying too few would weaken the new effects, thereby causing any promotions in quality to be delayed by numerous months.

If Gloriana had made a particularly large error, then parts of her new work might not be able to undergo accelerated improvement at all! This was why it was so important for the Greenaxe to get tested in New Constantinople. She could always bring the machine back to the workshop and make adjustments in order to correct for any errors.

"How is it so far? Do your calculations hold up to reality?"

"I have detected numerous discrepancies, but none of them are particularly severe." The female Journeyman replied as she continued to study the telemetry readings. "Before this initial test, I could only simulate the effects of the second generation god body method. My mathematical model is mostly accurate, but I misjudged a few variables. It shouldn't take too long for me to adjust my formulas and develop a more accurate model. I only need to apply light modifications to the Greenaxe in order to optimize its second generation god body characteristics."

This was normal and not a major issue. It would only take Gloriana a few hours to make the necessary corrections with the help of a powerful workshop.

While Gloriana continued to monitor the parameters of the god body method, Ves focused more on the hyper technology applications of his work.

The characteristic edge of the transphasic greataxe was particularly important to him. It combined three separate advantages into a single form, thereby attempting to reap the benefits of all at the same time!

Ves grew relieved when he saw that the transphasic component worked well enough. This aspect did not weaken despite all of the additional complications. This was important to maintaining the offensive superiority of the powerful weapon.

What interested him more was the other two components of the weapon. He had selected a powerful resonating exotic that happened to play well with Venerable Glendale's force of will.

The more Glendale resonated with his new weapon, the more the greataxe exerted a crushing effect, delivering a stronger kinetic and crushing blow that worked particularly well against both expert mechs and other hardy units!

The most special part about the axe was the hyper material used to enhance its power against alien warships.

Considering that the Greenaxe would probably be used to fight against powerful warships most of the time, Ves along with a local Terran development company worked together to adapt a new hyper material created by the T Institute.

By exposing the original material with the concentrated glow of the Phase King, the T Institute managed to develop a small variety of sympathetic materials that had notable interactions with phasewater.

While the quality and other properties of this hyper material were not that impressive, it was decently effective at negating transphasic defenses!

In certain cases, the new hyper could be used as a substitute for phasewater.

A much better use of this promising new material was to combine it with phasewater in order to produce a compound effect that was greater than the sum of its parts!

The overall power of a hyper material was partially dependent on the concentration of E energy in the environment.

In a medium energy environment like the Red Ocean, the greataxe was able to absorb a decent quantity of ambient E energy to power up every strike!

Ves could already see it when he looked out of the window of the control tower.

As the Greenaxe began to spin around while whipping up a lot of air with its devastating greataxe, his spiritual perception clearly saw how the heavy weapon practically commanded the power of heaven to strike in coordination with its own blows!

The Greenaxe also received a modest boost from Bravo. The design spirit's influence caused the expert mech to gain a more masculine and forceful air. The machine looked especially domineering when it demonstrated its strength with its greataxe!

Ves had struggled for a long time before he settled with Bravo as the design spirit for this expert mech. He did not have any other design spirits that fit the Greenaxe better.

The masculine mech was a powerhouse that sought to crush its opposition by relying on force rather than finesse!

"Once Venerable Glendale and the Greenaxe grows stronger and cultivates a bit more, they should be able to leverage a much greater amount of E energy with every strike. Their blows will become unstoppable."

Alexa had already learned from Ves that certain living mechs could cultivate on their own, but she wasn't sure how that worked for the Greenaxe.

"Sir, isn't the Greenaxe supposed to possess a blank personality? How can it cultivate on its own when it does not possess a conscious intelligence?"

"That is not necessarily the case." Ves responded. "It's a little complicated, but the short story is that second skin mechs can still cultivate autonomously if I have programmed it beforehand. The speed and efficiency can only reach the standards of a second order living mech at most. The only way to make it faster is if Venerable Glendale pilots the Greenaxe and actively directs its cultivation."

This was not an ideal solution, but it was the best Ves could do for second skin mechs. Its associated weaknesses emphasized the usefulness of classical living mechs even more.

After all, it was much more convenient if living mechs could cultivate by themselves without needing to rely on any human help.

"Alright, let's conduct the final test. Venerable Glendale, please test your strongest attack against the Macharia Excelsia.

Saintess Ulrika Vraken had been waiting for this. The ace rifleman mech emerged from an underground hangar bay and calmly flew in front of the Greenaxe.

The Macharia Excelsia was still powerful despite not receiving any major upgrades as of yet. Even if some of its tech had already become dated, it should still be able to endure the attacks from an expert mech with ease!

Ves had not forgotten about the ace pilot he borrowed from the Hexers.

Ves had taken the time to design numerous enhancements to the powerful machine in order to repay the Hex Federation for loaning out its ace pilot.

He wanted to wait until he tested his next generation tech before he applied his improvements to such an important machine.

"Alright, Glendale. Try and attack the Macharia Excelsia with your most powerful attacks."

"I am already nearing my limit, sir." The pilot transmitted back. "These attacks are much more draining than I expected. I won't be able to launch more than three axe strikes."

"Just launch a single attack, then."

Venerable Glendale concentrated as best he could. The suppression of Saintess Ulrika Vraken's domain field did not appear to affect his mood the slightest.

The powerful greataxe began to glow in green as Glendale resonated with it. He was more than pleased with his new weapon. He could feel various aspects of the weapon becoming more active and empowered as his willpower elevated its performance far beyond what was physically possible.

There was one more move he could make to empower his weapon even more.

He summoned his companion spirit and sent it to his greataxe so that he could form an even stronger connection!

"Rroar!"

The brown bear that embodied Glendale's great might caused the greataxe to gain an indescribable momentum.

As the Greenaxe chopped its heavy weapon downwards, it was as if an entire mountain collapsed on the slightly taller and slender form of the Macharia Excelsia!

BOOOOM!

A huge amount of energies erupted from the point of impact!

The Greenaxe stumbled backwards as powerful recoil caused the machine to lose control over its footing for a moment.

The machine barely managed to keep hold of its greataxe. Fortunately, its strong empowerment prevented it from suffering any serious damage, though it was best for Gloriana to inspect it afterwards to see if any of the more fragile components had shaken loose.

The Macharia Excelsia slowered lowered its pristine arm. The limb did not even suffer a scratch.

The combination between high-quality transphasic armor and a powerful Saint Kingdom that could bleed the power of any attacks had been more than enough to negate the damage of the Greenaxe's strongest attack!

"Oh well. We expected this result." Ves sighed.

His wife huffed at that. "You may be saying that, but I think you were secretly hoping that the Greenaxe would be able to leave at least minor scratch behind. What do you think, Alexa?"

"An attack with so many special properties should be able to inflict minor material damage on a first-class multipurpose mech depending on its tier." Alexa shared her own opinion. "It is not impossible for the current state of the Greenaxe to cut into the armor of a low-tier first-class mech. The premise is that the latter is based on a currentgen design. In reality, a true multipurpose mech should never allow the Greenaxe to get within its optimal attack range."

The Greenaxe was patterned after a typical assault mech. It boasted excellent offense and relatively good defense. This came at the cost of mobility as all of its bulk and heavy equipment made it a lot more sluggish.

While its mobility was still better because it was an expert mech equipped with a combat drive, expert light mechs were much faster!

In any case, many first-class multipurpose mechs possessed enough mobility to stay out of the Greenaxe's range. This would allow them to employ their large variety of ranged weapon modules to whittle down the relatively slow expert axeman mech from safer distances.

This was one of the reasons why first-class multipurpose mechs had become the mainstream in first-class space!

Simpler mech archetypes all possessed highly defined strengths and weaknesses. A first-class multipurpose mech could always target the shortcomings of a simpler machine, thereby attaining victories with much greater ease than normal.

In short, the Greenaxe in its current configuration was not a machine that would do well in first-class space.

The only ways to change that was for Venerable Glendale to advance to ace pilot, or to upgrade it to a first-class machine.

"Alright, that is enough for now. Glendale, you can bring your machine back and power it down. You can take the time to rest while we tweak and modify your Greenaxe later."

"Thank you, sir."

As the Greenaxe steadily stepped away, a much lighter and nimbler machine stepped forward.

The aggressively red and copper-coated light mech made a much different impression.

The expert light harasser mech tried to divert attention rather than attracting it like the Greenaxe.

Alexa and other observers found it slightly more difficult to keep their focus on the slim machine.

It was as if a faint and hazy screen had enveloped the Bloodripper, causing everyone to feel more uncomfortable as they continued to stare at the newly fabricated expert mech.

"The Bloodripper..."

"The Bloodripper is an expert mech evolution of the Stringripper." Ves explained. "If you have studied the latter, then you should know that it thrives off misdirection. Our second new expert mech does that while also possessing a much nastier offensive punch. Don't let its submachine gun fool you. It can tear through armor and transphasic energy shields alike. This is because it is is a fourth generation luminar crystal weapon!"