The Mech Touch

The explosive day had finally come to an end, but few people were in the mood to rest!

Whether they wanted to celebrate red humanity's smashing victory against the aliens or fanatically rewatch the footage of the awesome dreadnoughts and god mechs in action, plenty of individuals chose to skip sleep for the night.

They had too many topics to study and talk about!

Operation Night Jazz touched everyone's lives no matter whether they were commoners or leading figures.

The god pilots who disappeared from everyone's sights had finally shown what they were made of. Soon, they would be returning home and exert their power and influence over a society that had already undergone a lot of changes.

The mech industry and many other sectors had even more reasons to become excited. The release of so much technological innovations and specifications spurred the enthusiasm of a lot of mech designers and other related professionals.

Once the Lord of Thermodynamics had finished his presentation, the Red Association had promptly published a lot of technical documents that detailed all of the designs and related knowledge introduced by the Hyper Generation.

The quantity of learning material released by the RA was much higher this time than in previous generations.

This did not surprise anyone as hyper technology introduced an entirely new field that could profoundly change the way that existing products worked.

While the focus definitely rested on mechs and starships, anyone with a bit of sense could easily imagine that hyper technology would never be contained in these narrow categories!

The markets for implants, designer beasts, artwork, infantry gear and so much more were about to get completely upended in the following years!

Existing product lines had all become obsolete due to the fact that they did not make any meaningful use of the possibilities presented by hyper technology.

Old market leaders that failed to keep up with the times risked surrendering their market share to smaller but more innovative startups!

This was an opportunity for any business that sought to squeeze into the market.

Sadly for Ves, this transition came at an awkward time for him. His entire clan had already decided to shift their focus to the upper zones.

A number of important lead designers were about to undergo years of deep immersion EdNet training, which meant that they wouldn't be available to update the existing product lines of the LMC!

Ves and Gloriana could do the work themselves, but that would detract from their important studies. They needed to consider these matters carefully.

As husband and wife continued to skim over all of the technical documents, they remained quiet as they absorbed all of the interesting new designs and theoretical knowledge at their own pace.

"Miaow-"

Clixie yawned as she rested on the untouched bed.

"Meow."

Lucky had grown bored as well. The gem cat lifted off from the bed and phased through the apartment wall.

Ves ignored the antics of the cats. Much of his thinking capacity had become preoccupied with internalizing all of the new ways he could make his mech designs stronger.

He grew relieved that all of the extra effort spent on incorporating rudimentary applications of hyper technology had not gone to waste.

Working together with local Terran development companies had been a fortunate decision. The researchers and developers over there had done an excellent job at developing and refining hyper products without receiving any guidance from the RA.

That said, the Greenaxe and the Bloodripper could clearly use an update in order to bring their other mech systems up to standard.

One of the greatest benefits of the latest technology dump was that it encompassed a broad range of mech systems.

As much as Ves had worked to improve his luminar crystal weapons by incorporating hyper technology, he did not have the time or expertise to do this for every other mech system.

Therefore, Ves had not put any special focus on improving the armor system, the flight system, the sensor system and so on. This meant that his recently developed expert mechs could only be considered partial hyper mechs at most.

"There is no need to recall our two babies and upgrade them right away." Gloriana remarked as she continued to study the working principles of space suppression technology. "Certainly, much of the Greenaxe and the Bloodaxe has become obsolete overnight, but it is not as if they have lost parity in the field. Everyone else will still be using lastgen products for the foreseeable time. It will take years for other parties to gradually phase out their lastgen technologies. Besides, it is not our human competitors that we have to worry about, but the aliens that are everyone's common enemies."

His wife raised a lot of good points. It was not easy to digest all of the newly released technologies.

Mech designers like Ves needed to put a decent amount of time into studying and mastering the new tech. The more complicated their work, the more they needed to go in depth.

Then they needed to apply what they had learned in their design projects. Whether they chose to design new mechs or update their existing ones, it would takemonths before they could complete a modern mech design.

Then they needed to find a way to make their new mech model enter into production. This was not as easy as before because the manufacturer needed to find a way to source all of the required hyper materials.

The market for hyper materials and especially ones that were aspected towards specific attributes was still in its infancy.

Supply was still too scarce because many parties were still stuck in the starting phases.

Fortunately for Ves, the T Institute had already set up a decent 'production center' for many varieties of sympathetic materials.

Ves could even instruct the Premier Branch to establish a much larger production center next to Diandi Base.

He was not sure whether it was necessary or wise to do so. Regardless of what happened, as long as he wanted to produce hyper mechs en masse, he would have to establish a cooperation with other material suppliers spread throughout human-occupied space.

There was no need for Ves to personally deal with all of these logistical issues, but he could not ignore these complications at the design stage.

Ves took another look at the projected equations and theories.

"From what I have seen so far, there is little here that can stop the native aliens from stealing our hyper tech. I can bet you that the puelmers have already gained access to these very same documents straight away. No matter whether they have received any help from the cosmopolitans or not, there is no way that all of the intelligent aliens will ignore the massive benefits of adopting hyper tech."

His wife did not look too concerned.

"Alien R&D is inferior to ours. Their scientists and researchers have stagnated for too long. The puelmers are known to be excellent imitators, but their ability to innovate is much worse. Our ability to improve our tech and develop new solutions will always be faster than that of our alien competitors. We only need to put enough time and effort to stay ahead of the curve."

He agreed with her assessment for the most part. Red humanity possessed a significant advantage in the fields of hyper technology and to a lesser extent E-technology. Ves knew that a lot of parties had already revived their ancient cultivation heritages. The mystical knowledge could help them develop more advanced applications such as general cultivation elixirs.

Even so, the constantly evolving arms race between red humanity and the native aliens would never become too lopsided.

Sooner or later, the aliens would begin to roll out warships upgraded with hyper tech.

"It takes a lot more time to design an up-to-date warship, and it takes even longer to construct the new hulls." Ves spoke his thoughts. "The vast majority of warships that are currently in use by the aliens will remain lastgen for the foreseeable future. Only the most elite fleets will receive their upgrades faster than anyone else, but they are usually taken care of by the Red Two and the first-rate superstates."

In short, Ves did not have much reason to worry about falling behind. He could take his time to master all of the new hyper tech and gradually upgrade all of his existing works to the new standards.

"It is also good that we have yet to complete the Jupiter Project and the Blood Star Mark II Project." Gloriana noted with a smile. "We will have to delay their completion by a month or two in order to incorporate advanced versions of all of the new hyper technology, but your uncle and grandfather will thank us for the additional effort that we have put into their expert mechs."

That was also true. Ves knew that he would have to revise his other ongoing mech design projects as well. There was no way he was willing to complete the Fey Project or the Supremo Project when their technological standards and specifications had already fallen behind.

Ves was not too worried about the additional workload. So long as he did not try anything fancy, he could mostly get by with plugging in the updated hyper technology into his existing designs.

He could also solicit even further help from development companies. Designing and customizing mech parts and mech systems was their bread and butter. They experienced an even greater urgency in keeping up with the latest technological improvements. It wouldn't take long before they released new generation products that other mech designers could readily incorporate in their own works!

There was one new branch of technology that was not as readily available to everyone.

Ves couldn't help but notice its absence in the information package released to the public.

"Huh. There is hardly anything related to E-technology here. The Lord of Thermodynamics briefly mentioned it during his presentation, and a few of the documents here mention it in passing, but none of them have described any concrete application in this field."

Gloriana rolled his eyes. "Not everyone has your powers, Ves. Hyper technology is simpler to get started with. You only need to play with hyper materials. E-technology is much harder to work with. If I did not have my own companion spirit, I would not even be able to manipulate E energy, let alone perceive its existence. In the absence of systematic theories and instruments that can facilitate research and development, E-tech will likely remain obscure."

The implications of that were considerable. Ves immediately thought of all of the advantages of being one of the few individuals who possessed a competency in this technological branch.

His eyes lit up. "My spiritual engineering work is a lot more difficult to replicate by others! My works will continue to have a competitive advantage so long as rival mech designers are unable to beat the value proposition of living mechs and design spirits. More importantly than that, the aliens are at an even greater disadvantage. They have no background in cultivation science and E-technology as far as I am aware of, so it will be practically impossible for them to close this technological gap!"

He understood why the mechers did not take the initiative to share too many details about E-technology. They probably regarded it as the enduring advantage that would continue to secure red humanity's technological superiority in this dwarf galaxy!

Ves recognized his importance in this picture. Pure E-technologies such as kinship networks and companion spirits had to remain in human hands as much as possible.

It was not for nothing that the Survivalist Faction sponsored his promotion to a tier 3 galactic citizen. The mechers strongly regarded his unique works as red humanity's core advantages.

E-technology may even create the breakthrough that red humanity needed to attain a decisive victory against the native aliens!

Ves gained a renewed sense of purpose. He became more eager than ever to put his own spin on the new possibilities introduced by the Hyper Generation!