The Mech Touch

The Stingripper was more than just its weapon.

Nonetheless, Ves primarily looked forward to this testing session because he wanted to see the first full production version of a fourth generation transphasic luminar crystal weapon in action.

The short-lived third generation enabled a design spirit to empower the damage output of a luminar crystal weapon.

While that already sounded powerful, the fourth generation made use of hyper materials to modify the attack phase crystals and actively borrow the power of heaven to magnify its attacks!

This added a whole new dimension to luminar crystal weapons and ensured that they would not become obsolete as the Age of Dawn continued to unfold.

"How are you feeling, Venerable Rodrigo?"

"I feel great." The expert pilot replied. "This is the first time that I am piloting the mech of my dreams. I haven't encountered any hindrances. The living mech is actively helping me adapt to its controls and settings. No other living mech that I have piloted in the past is as enjoyable as my new Bloodripper. I really want to let go and see how fast it can fly."

"That is good to hear. You will have your chance, but not right away. Let us start with basic movements first."

It took a while for the Bloodripper to go through its basic routine. Compared to the larger and stockier Greenaxe, the expert light mech possessed a much wider range of motion.

"Impressive. Move over to the racing course. Let us test the speed of your machine next."

There were no surprises on these aspects. Whether the Bloodripper moved on land or in the air, the machine was blazingly fast.

Not only that, but its agility was also impressive, allowing it to change directions much faster than larger and heavier machines.

Not even the Dark Zephyr could match the speed and agility of the Bloodripper!

While speed was definitely important for both machines, the latter was not only more modern, but also put an even greater emphasis on mobility.

Speed was life!

Without enough speed, the Bloodripper would not be able to compete against other expert mechs!

Another difference between the Dark Zephyr and the Bloodripper was that the latter had been designed to fight against alien warships from the ground up. Ves had made a lot of deliberate design choices that enabled it to become a lot more effective against alien opponents in spite of its inherent weaknesses.

"Let us proceed with testing the evasion of your new expert mech." Ves commanded after he had seen enough of the speed tests. "You will need to resonate more actively with your Bloodripper for this. I want you to activate its Aspora Vibration System first. The energy drain is considerable, so make sure to keep an eye on your energy reserves. The sensation may also be uncomfortable, but don't worry. Your mech can handle this level of shaking so long as it hasn't suffered severe damage."

It took a minute for Venerable Rodrigo to get ready to activate this new mode.

In the meantime, the Macharia Excelsia stepped in position with its Hexfire luminar crystal assault rifle ready to fire.

The powerful weapon used to be cutting-edge, but it was unfortunate that the third generation luminar crystal weapon unexpectedly became outdated by the time the Great Severing occurred.

The Hexfire rifle was therefore due for a major update. Ves had already started to work on it, but he wasn't certain about his design choices because many of his new ideas had yet to be tested.

This was why Ves looked forward to seeing the Bloodripper's new submachine gun in action.

That could come later. Ves first needed to test the important feature of the expert light harasser mech.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes. Bring it on! I am not afraid!"

"This is not supposed to be a dangerous test, Venerable Rodrigo. The Macharia Excelsia will fire its positron beams at you at its lowest possible setting. It will probably sting your resonance shield if you get hit."

In fact, Ves wasn't quite sure how well the Bloodripper could take this hit. A casual blow from an ace mech was no joke, and expert light mechs weren't known for their defensive properties.

The test soon commenced as the entire mech frame of the Bloodripper began to shake and vibrate.

Part of it was an illusion produced by resonance shenanigans, but part of it was real!

At this time, the Aspora Vibration System caused the mech to shake in a way that caused it to look fuzzier and difficult to pin down.

This not only made it uncomfortable for people to keep track of the machine as it moved, but also produced a lot of odd interference that made it a lot harder for electronic sensors to track its coordinates and movements!

With the help of Kalo, the fuzziness of the Bloodripper became even more exaggerated. While the expert light harasser mech did not display true stealth that allowed it to sneak up to enemies unnoticed, it became extraordinarily more difficult to pin it down while it was on the move!

A series of turrets rose from the ground. These weak practice turrets served no other purpose than to simulate the tracking of automatic defensive systems onto a mech.

The turrets opened fire. They unleashed a variety of ranged attacks, from kinetic rounds to laser beams.

None of them managed to strike the Bloodripper even once!

Despite the relatively close distance, the fuzzy expert mech generated so much electronic noise that automated systems especially had a hard time tracking the annoying light mech!

Ves grinned when he saw this result. Even if the turrets did not come equipped with the best and most powerful tracking systems, their performance should not be that much worse from the tracking systems of actual alien warships!

Most warships relied entirely on automated systems to do the hard work of tracking targets and aiming their gun batteries at them. It was too slow, inefficient and cumbersome to leave all of this work to individual crew members.

Only under the most desperate circumstances would the crews assigned to the relevant stations be forced to switch over to manual aim!

In any case, so long as the Bloodripper did not approach any warships that received a lot of investment or belonged to the puelmer race, only the most intense saturation fire could cause this difficult mech to get hit by attacks!

"I've seen enough." Ves spoke. "Saintess Ulrika, please proceed. Try and start off by demonstrating the marksmanship of a typical second-class mech pilot and slowly ramp up. For safety's sake, don't hit the Bloodripper more than three times in a row."

"Understood." The Hexer ace pilot responded.

The turrets had given Venerable Rodrigo and the Bloodripper a decent amount of exercise, but the pair truly had to test their capabilities when they became the target of an ace mech!

The Bloodripper did decently well for a time. Saintess Ulrika was so skilled that she was accurately able to simulate the performance of weaker mech pilots.

It was not until Saintess Ulrika began to perform like a low-tier expert pilot that she exerted real pressure onto Venerable Rodrigo!

The intuition of a fairly powerful attacker was enough to counteract the intuition of a fairly powerful defender.

Occasionally, the Macharia Excelsia managed to land a few glancing blows, but the Bloodripper did well enough to have enough opportunities to counterattack.

It was not until Saintess Ulrika simulated the performance of a much more experienced mid-tier expert pilot that the Bloodripper started to show more faults!

Its disadvantages had become so great that it could no longer prevent itself from getting struck multiple times in a row!

"That is enough." Ves announced. "We have collected a lot of interesting data from this test. The Aspora Vibration System has largely performed as expected. It is most effective against automated systems, but quickly loses its advantage against superior combatants. You will need to become a lot stronger if you want to increase your evasion performance, Rodrigo."

Rodrigo was still at the start of his journey as an expert pilot. He still had much more room for improvement. He may even be able to surpass Venerable Tusa on this aspect!

Once they completed this test, they moved on to the next and most exciting one for Ves.

The Bloodripper moved to a shooting range where a variety of different targets had been set up in advance.

Some of them were plain alloy blocks while others enjoyed the protection of transphasic energy shields.

"This is an important test, Venerable Rodrigo. The primary weapon of the Bloodripper is a special new luminar crystal weapon that I have called the Copperpill. It is an energy submachine gun that only comes with two attack phase crystals. While I could have added more, it would have added a lot more bulk to your weapon. Let us test the performance of the new phase disruptor beam setting first."

The Bloodripper raised a single arm towards a nearby energy shield and began to fire a volley of relatively weak but rapid energy beams.

The first energy beam already managed to disrupt the energy shield to the point where it disappeared in an instant!

"That was just the warmup. Let us try that against a transphasic energy shield."

This time, the Bloodripper's submachine gun attacks began to whittle down the transphasic energy shields at a slower but still impressive rate!

Ves grinned when he witnessed the performance of the new phase disruptor beams.

The new crystal was a straightforward fourth generation upgrade of the old disruptor beam attack phase crystal.

The major difference was that Ves added the same hyper that enhanced the Greenaxe's weapon to a regular transphasic disruptor beam attack phase crystal.

By combining the materials in a specific way, the resulting crystal was able to output enhanced transphasic attacks that were even more effective against energy-based defenses!

It was not until the Bloodripper fired its weapon on material objects that its performance dropped. The phase disruptor beam did almost no damage to solid metal, but it turned out to be remarkably effective at penetrating and disrupting electronic systems.

This made the Bloodripper remarkably good at pursuing and disabling fleeing craft. It had a wonderful future as a pirate mech for that reason alone!

The Copperpill's current performance did not explain the reason why Ves named it in such an odd way. It was only when Venerable Rodrigo received permission to switch to the second attack phase crystal that it became clear.

The coppery red energy beams appeared underwhelming at first. Their damage against energy shields was disappointing.

It was only when they started to strike solid matter that they started to become remarkable!

The modified positron beams initially looked as if it inflicted mostly heat damage.

However, repeated hits onto the same areas slowly caused the affected areas to form odd pools of molten and corroded metals. On top of that, the strange energy beams also weakened the metal beyond the immediate points of contact.

The more the Copperpill struck a solid target, the greater the extent the latter began to degrade!

This happened particularly quickly when the Bloodripper fired upon weaker alloys, but it still remained effective when attacking first-class alloys!

If that wasn't impressive enough, the corroding and weakening effects became amplified with Venerable Rodrigo and Kalo resonated with the Copperpill.

Not only did the attacks become more potent, but they also started to grow fuzzier, producing an odd interaction where it was able to degrade tough transphasic alloys a lot more effectively than before!

"How?" Alexa asked. "These variant positron beams are much more effective against transphasic alloys than ordinary transphasic positron beams!"

"That is the power of my new copper beam conversion." Ves grinned. "I have combined a positron beam attack phase crystal with a hyper material that can produce corrosion. This new crystal can produce energy attacks that not only corrodes solid matter with greater ease, but has proven to be especially effective at weakening transphasic alloys. According to my lab results, a copper beam attack essentially attacks the phasewater that is infused in the material. Once that happens, the metal in question no longer possesses any transphasic properties, which means it has become much easier to destroy!"

The copper beam attack phase crystal was an excellent complement to the Bloodripper!

The mech might not be able to launch any powerful blows, but it excelled at weakening and disrupting all manner of tricky opponents!

The best part about all of these weapon advancements was that they should be effective at every class.

Ves believed that the phase disruptor beam and the copper beam would remain just as impressive when applied to genuine first-class weapons!