The Mech Touch

As Ves tried out various basic abilities, he found that it was a lot easier to perform them as before.

The phasewater organs truly helped to make these abilities more accessible. They acted like formulas that took away much of the work and effort needed to manually figure out solutions.

Accessing them was not obvious to Ves at first. He had no inherent knowledge or awareness of the phasewater organs and their many functions.

It was only when he actively concentrated on them and tried to flex them in different ways that he instinctively became aware of what they could do. It was a strange process to Ves as there was nothing human about these organs that he could relate to. He had to explore everything with caution in order to avoid any uncontrolled outbursts.

Soon enough, he started to grow a little more accustomed with flexing the basic abilities of all three phasewater organs.

"Hit me." Ves requested as he proudly stood in his new nanosuit.

Four different bots surrounded him at this moment. Upon his command, they began to fire harmless white balls that stopped short of hitting his body.

A nearly invisible spatial barrier flared into visibility upon impact. They stably blocked the damage without experiencing any noticeable drain.

"Please escalate the kinetic power of the attacks."

The bots started to launch harder and faster projectiles at Ves. The spatial barrier continued to hold for quite a bit of time, even when the attacks had begun to turn lethal to baseline humans.

Nobody worried too much about the potential risks of accidents. Ves still carried his latest personal azure shield generator, and the nanosuit also possessed notable defensive properties.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The attacks grew stronger and stronger until the bots had to launch attacks that could pose an actual threat to third-class mechs!

This was the point where Ves felt he needed to put more serious effort into maintaining his defenses.

The four small bots made way for a single larger one that packed a serious punch.

It was already overkill to employ this killer bot against most infantry units, but Ves no longer fit into this category anymore!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The kinetic cannon steadily launched progressively more punishing attacks while the mechers gathered a ton of useful data.

They not only monitored the activity of the Kelsis organ, but also studied the exact properties of the spatial barrier that had formed a bubble around Ves' body!

It wasn't until his spatial barrier started to wobble and show more signs of destabilization that Ves truly started to experience significant strain!

"Okay, that is enough." Jovy announced.

The killer bot immediately stopped its attacks and purposefully pointed its kinetic cannon in a different direction.

"Hey, I can still handle more. I have not even come close to my limit yet!" Ves complained.

"We have gathered enough data to calculate your approximate limit. It is absolutely not advisable to subject you to stronger attacks. They can be truly life-threatening, and we do not dare to bet on our backup options to protect you from serious trauma."

Though Ves felt a little frustrated at the early suspension, he understood why the mechers behaved so cautiously. They were only following proper procedures.

"Fine. Let us move on to other tests."

He managed to open himself up to a whole range of new senses with the Locos organ. He gained a special perception towards spatial phenomena.

Although it was not good enough to pick up the most subtle disturbances, it was more than enough to detect any activity generated by other phase lords.

"The range is quite impressive." Jovy said as Ves looked at a point that was situated way beyond the underground walls of the testing chamber. "One of our first-class multipurpose mechs is firing one of its transphasic weapons 12 kilometers away."

"The sensitivity of my Locos organ has severely dropped at the limits of my perception range. I do not think I can detect any spatial activity generated by anything weaker than a transphasic mech at this distance."

That was rather disappointing to Ves. Being able to perceive strong activity 12 kilometers away sounded like a lot, but it was wholly insufficient in actual combat, especially in space. Real phase lords should be able to extend their spatial perception a lot further away.

When Ves seriously began to test the limits of his Maracos organ, he played around with various basic applications.

For example, he found that he could actually bend and fold space as if it was a multidimensional blanket.

It was impossible for Ves to describe the process of doing so. It was simply not human to begin with. The Maracos organ somehow exerted the power of phasewater in such a way that enabled him to knead space as if it was a toy!

Of course, the relatively basic Maracos organ in his body was not highly developed. Ves could not 'fold' space in half or shatter it entirely.

He could only extend the effects generated by his Maracos organ roughly 80 meters away. Any further than that rapidly increased its strain, making Ves feel as if it was starting to burst!

He could consciously increase or decrease the stability of the space around him, making it easier or harder for others to perform spatial tricks.

He was not able to generate any serious gravity wells nor create any wicked space blades. This was strange because Ves could still feel that his Maracos organ had power to spare.

The problem was that it did not come with too many ability templates. Ves figured out that he needed to improve his proficiency in spatial manipulation and be able to perform these specialized applications by himself.

Once he managed to master a method manipulating space to a sufficient degree, he could find a way to solidify the process by updating his Maracos organ.

"This is really troublesome." Ves grumbled.

"You are already lucky enough to enjoy a head start." Jovy responded in a light-hearted tone. "Depending on the species, it may take years if not decades of manual practice in order to master the few abilities that you have easily demonstrated. You have reached a point in your development where most phase lords must choose to specialize in a specific direction of spatial manipulation. They cannot learn or acquire these advanced applications by themselves, which is why they must always apprentice themselves to more powerful phase leaders."

That was understandable. The phasewater organs were extremely complicated. It was easy to botch any attempt to modify them in any way. Only expert guidance from a more established phase lord or phase whale could ensure that this development process would go smoothly.

This was where the small community of native gods began to splinter into different factions and schools of thought.

Different species possessed different inclinations, and they possessed different strengths that caused them to excel in some applications of spatial manipulation.

It was still unclear what human phase lords excelled at. There was no one else like Ves, and his conditions weren't exactly normal to begin with. He possessed several abnormalities that made it difficult to generalize any of his results.

"If I have to speculate, I think your perceptive ability should be the strongest."

"Really?"

"Do not underestimate the value of strengthening your perception. I think it may serve you well whenever you do any work related to transphasic mechs. It is the only ability so far that can assist you in a productive capacity."

That was actually an astute point. Ves grew thoughtful as he tried to figure out how gaining an enhanced perception of space could help with designing or fabricating better transphasic mechs.

In any case, before Ves was ready to move on to the second phase of testing, he wanted to explore his teleporting ability.

Jovy found it strange that Ves was able to do this naturally. "You do not possess any phasewater organs that are associated with any known displacement techniques. How did you teleport in the past?"

"I... just tried to think about it really hard." Ves lamely said. "I tried to work the phasewater in body to do what I want, and somehow it just... happens."

"...Perhaps we should err on the side of caution. Your method sounds too ad-hoc to be safe. You were lucky that you did not split yourself in half by displacing your upper body while leaving your lower one behind."

"It's not that dangerous!" Ves protested. "I don't know how it is with other phase lords, but I am pretty sure I can pull it off without any risk! Don't forget that I managed to teleport myself as well as Major Simon Jankowksi several hundred meters away from the cockpit of the Elemental Lord."

"It was highly dangerous of you to do so, Ves! We were on the verge of remotely activating your emergency teleporter. If that did not work, we intended to utilize a more powerful remote teleportation machine that we had already brought into the field. Relying on your new phase lord constitution to teleport 'by instinct' should be your last possible resort!"

Jovy was right from an objective viewpoint, but Ves felt differently about this subject.

Whether it was unique to Ves or common to all phase lords, he felt that he possessed an innate ability to teleport his body across modest distances.

The Red Association may have learned a lot about phase lords, but Ves did not think the mechers had managed to steal every secret related to phase lords.

"I am trying it out at least once." Ves said in a determined tone. "It is better that I experiment with it in a controlled environment than attempt to pull it off during another crisis situation!"

He repeated the process that worked in the past and tried really hard to will his body into a different position!

Crack!

The noise created by the displacement echoed throughout the chamber as Ves found himself roughly 33 meters away from his previous position!

"Your condition appears to be good. You have not sustained any injuries according to our sensors."

"See? I knew I could do it." Ves grinned as he relished at how he was able to pull it off so easily this time. "I think I am starting to get accustomed to doing this. I don't feel that I am doing anything special. I just try to activate all of the phasewater that is spread throughout my body at once. I don't think it is necessary for me to acquire a specific phasewater organ for this unless I want to increase my range or improve my capacity to overcome space suppression."

"How good is your precision?"

Ves looked down at his feet. The floor of the testing chamber was marked by a temporary grid pattern, making it easier to determine distances.

"I ended up at the exact right location I was targeting. I cannot guarantee my accuracy will be as good if I try to teleport a few hundred meters away."

"Is there any sense of protection or limitation when it comes to displacing your body under the floor or beyond your line of sight?"

"Huh. Now that you mention it, I instinctively feel that I do not have to worry about teleporting into walls, chairs or other solid matter. I don't exactly know why. I know I can teleport to locations beyond my sight, even if I have never been there before. I have a feeling that it is a lot more dangerous, though."

"Do you have any indication of your maximum displacement range?"

Ves looked off into the distance again. "I can get a vague sense of it, but I won't know for sure until I try it out. I estimate that my maximum range should be no more than two to three kilometers."

"That is respectable. 1 am sure you can move much further if you improve your proficiency with this skill."

Neither Ves nor Jovy were eager to test the range of this teleportation ability.

The risks were simply too great. It was enough to know that Ves could displace himself several hundred meters away with relative ease. He could even bring along any objects he was touching, though the range drastically decreased as they grew larger.

Once they concluded this round of testing, Ves was ready to move on to the most exciting portion of this session.

"Are you sure this nanosuit will sufficiently cover me when I unfold my true body?" Ves worriedly asked as he picked on the 'fabric' of his skinny suit. "It looks awfully thin to me, you know. I can hardly imagine that there are enough nanites to preserve my modesty."

Jovy let out another sigh. "They work differently from what you think. The nanosuit is completely sufficient. Even if an accident occurs that leads you to exposing yourself, what does it matter? We have more than enough scans of your body to know what is underneath. In fact, the nanosuit is constantly broadcasting a precise and accurate capture of all of its shapes and contours at a frequency of 388,000 times a second. We won't be seeing anything new even if your body has grown much larger."