The Mech Touch

Ves could slowly feel the powerful vitality contained within the massive body of the Giant Stone Eater draining at a rapid pace.

As a mech designer who possessed a strong affinity towards life, he could easily sense that the massive creature's body was not able to sustain itself any longer.

Though it would still take a long time for the enormous beast to suspend all of its biological process, its death had been sealed from the moment a pair of Monster Slayers cut off its head.

Several minutes passed by as Ves and Blinky carefully harvested the dying spirituality of the Giant Stone Eater and stuffed it into the P-stone.

This was a difficult and delicate process. While it was not that hard to harvest a few gains from the dying beast, the true challenge lay in preserving the integrity of the spirit as much as possible.

There were numerous times where Blinky had to act forcefully in order to separate the spirit from the body.

Soon enough, Ves grinned in satisfaction as his new P-stone contained the spirituality of a very angry, confused and disoriented mutated beast.

The additional trauma to its soul had caused it to lose its awareness and rationality. It would probably take a few weeks for it to recover its wits and understand the reality of its new life as an intangible entity.

Ves reminded himself that he or one of his spirits should keep an eye on this creature.

Ordinary spiritualities salvaged from dying organisms had lost their physical roots. Back during the Age of Mechs, that meant that they would slowly die and dissipate in a low energy environment.

This time was different. A medium energy environment might be able to provide enough support for the Giant Stone Eater to recover and live out an independent existence.

"I can't let you escape."

He needed to devise a better means to store his salvaged spiritualities. Though Ves recognized the value of the Giant Stone Eater in all kinds of earth and defense-based design applications, he was not able to use its spirituality to its full potential at this time.

Ves had yet to study the earth element on a deeper level. He only possessed a shallow understanding of this E energy attribute. He wanted to wait until he had made a lot more progress in comprehending the power of earth before he utilized his new spiritual ingredients in the best possible fashion.

"At least I don't have to wait in order to delve deeper into the earth element."

One of the ways he could take advantage of the spirituality of the Giant Stone Eater was to study it in its current form.

The mutated beast had developed numerous inherent applications of manipulating earth-attributed E energy on its own. It had become particularly strong in several sub-categories such as drawing power from the soil, reinforcing the body to make it tougher and physically manipulating rocks in order to form a thick layer of stone armor.

If Ves was able to decipher these concepts well enough, he could potentially bestow his landbound mechs with much greater strength than normal!

Even if he did not excel in defense, he could work together with a defensive specialist such as Sara Voiken and make their mechs a lot tougher and more resilient than usual!

Of course, none of this was easy to attain. Ves needed to put in a lot of work and utilize his new gains properly in order to produce superior results.

Once Ves carefully set aside the filled P-stone, he returned his attention to the hunting team.

The beast had just been slain, but that did not mean that everyone's work was over.

The Crystal Lords all remained vigilant and on guard. They had already split up so that they could surround the edge of the crater from three different positions.

They stood guard and watched out for any exobeast that threatened to come closer.

In the meantime, Captain Gheri's Monster Slayer along with another machine that was in reasonably good shape had begun to process the carcass.

The Giant Stone Eater was too large and heavy to drag out of the hunting ground in its entirety.

The best the hunting team could take from the corpse was the most remarkable organs and the hardest scales.

The two swordsman mechs engaged in old-fashioned butchery. They hacked and slashed through the body of the decapitated beast and dug out any organs that looked more special than others.

One of the Hymenopteras assisted this process by carefully unfolding numerous freezer containers and quickly placing the organs inside.

The other auxiliary mech had begun to conduct more thorough field repairs on the damaged and crippled mechs.

The Monster Slayer that fell first no longer had to support its weight on a thick and awkward metal brace.

It took quite a bit of time to remove the brace and install more suitable parts that restored partial control over the crippled limb.

The partially restored mech still hadn't regained its full mobility, but at least it would no longer slow everyone down as the hunting team made its way out of the hunting zone.

Ves watched with fascination as the mech pilot performed lots of simple and crude repairs in the field.

Despite the Heavensworder mech pilot's lack of expertise, this was not a hindrance as many repair jobs could be completed by relying on automatic tools and step-by-step manuals.

Sure, the quality of the restoration left anything to be desired, but it was fine so long as a mech regained functionality in the middle of a dangerous hunting zone.

Proper repairs could wait for later. The mechs still had to return to safety before they could be brought to a workshop.

Ves actually felt tempted to take charge of the field repairs, but he refrained from doing so. The hunters needed all of the practice that they could get, and the conditions were so poor that he would not be able to make much of a difference in a short amount of time.

He instead decided to pay more attention to the organ harvesting process. He found that even if none of the hunters systematically studied exobiology and anatomy, they still possessed keen judgment on which ones were more special and valuable than others.

This was the kind of fieldcraft that the mech pilots had acquired through repeated hunts. The Hunter's Association also taught a lot of helpful information that was easy for hunters to digest.

"Are you planning to eat or sacrifice the organs on the spot?" Ves respectfully asked.

"No and yes." Captain Gheri replied. "Eating the meat of our prey is an old Swordmaiden tradition. The Hunter's Association did not introduce this custom. Many hunters had already done so for a long time. Sometimes they do not even bother to wait until they can process and filter out the junk inside the meat. Hunting was originally about filling your stomach, you know."

"Eating exobeast meat can be dangerous." Ves frowned.

"That is true, but you can augment your stomach and digestion system to make it safer. Many of the avid hunters among the Swordmaidens had already done so. There is no greater pleasure than to eat the meat of the prey that you have hunted down with your own effort."

"Will you sacrifice the remainder of this carcass according to the rituals described by the Hunter's Code?"

"No." Captain Gheri issued a stern reply. "We have studied the Hunter's Code, but we do not entirely agree with everything. The Swordmaidens... are not hunters. We are warriors, swordswomen and soldiers. We would much rather fight the native aliens that are trying to destroy our clan than to hunt these beasts for the rest of our lives."

"I thought you Swordmaidens would have been more enthused about hunting."

"That is a misconception. While Venerable Dise and myself enjoy the hunt, we only love it for the occasional challenge it brings. We don't want to become stronger by obsessing ourselves over our diet and asking the Huntsman for handouts. Ketis told us that relying too much on this weird stuff will make it harder for people to become swordmasters and expert pilots."

"She is right, captain." Ves approvingly said. "Willpower can only grow if warriors insist on relying on their own strength to overcome their opponents."

"We do not despise hunters, but we would rather rely on our own means. We can exercise our swordsmanship and improve our skills much better than if we spend our time on conventional training. There are many lessons that we can only learn if we fight in the field. I could have never pulled off that last sword attack of mine if I did not push myself against such a powerful monster."

The mention of her sword attack reminded Ves of his interest in the new combat approach of the Swordmaidens.

"I couldn't help but notice that you and your Monster Slayer have managed to cooperate much better than other pairings. You even managed to produce a slight amount of resonance comparable to that of expert candidates."

"It is still a work in progress. Swordmaster Ketis has worked hard with other people to improve our swordsmanship. I am among the first Swordmaidens to have mastered her new methods and techniques to this point. It is not that complicated in theory, but..."

"You need to meet a lot of conditions in order to make it work, am I correct?"

"Yes. Ketis mainly wants to strengthen her fellow sisters, so her work is entirely made for us. She knows exactly what we are capable of. In order to become as powerful as me, a mech pilot must have strong willpower and pilot one of her swordsman mechs. The pilot needs to become good at controlling the mech. Only then can the pilot try to combine forces with the machine by using a powerful sword style as the means to bring them closer. This is the key to making it work. Mastering a special kind of swordsmanship and learning how to apply it with the body of a swordsman mech ties everything together."

"I don't understand. How can excellent swordsmanship allow you to blur the line between you and your machine?"

"You will have to ask Swordmaster Ketis if you want to know the specifics. I don't understand much of this complicated stuff."

"I have every intention of doing so, but that will have to wait until later. Has Ketis said anything more about her goals and ambitions in this new combat solution?"

"Well... I think she once called this new state the 'Unity of Sword and Machine'. She thinks that if she can develop it further, it will make any of our swordsman mechs strong by virtue of our skills."

Unity of Sword and Machine.

That was a bold description for a new form of synergy between a mech and a mech pilot.

Ves was not certain whether this approach only applied to traditional swordsmanship, but that was not important.

What mattered was that Ves had the sense that Ketis was reinventing the wheel.

The Progenitors of Mechs devised a powerful new cultivation method that allowed for mech pilots to evolve into god pilots step by step.

This highly effective and successful cultivation paradigm enabled the rise of transcendent warriors and soldiers who were perfectly adapted to a low energy environment!

What Ketis was doing was similar. She attempted to adapt traditional swordsmanship with mechs in a way that maximized their synergies in a medium energy environment.

That last part was the most important factor!

By taking advantage of the ability for living mechs to interact with E energy, Ketis was actively able to leverage the power of heaven to amplify any form of swordsmanship!

Ves suddenly widened his eyes.

He had made a huge realization!

"The power of heaven..."

He couldn't help but think back on his former student's cozy relationship with the Heavensword.

Ketis must have definitely become contaminated by the exceptionally powerful grand work in the brief time she wielded it in battle.

Perhaps this contact allowed her to get started in combining exotic radiation with traditional swordsmanship!