The Mech Touch

Given the congestion in Bortele, the Bluejay Fleet could not avoid getting fairly close to other fleets, especially as it moved closer to the third planet from the local star.

Nonetheless, traffic control reserved a fairly wide band of space for the important fleet.

Once the collection of warships of the Red Association entered into high orbit over Bortele III, Ves and an expanded group of staffers teleported directly down to the surface.

This time, they arrived directly inside Razor Fort, the local headquarters of the Bortele III Branch of the Larkinson Clan.

Due to recent events, the Bortele III Branch had grown faster than all of the other ones.

It not only facilitated the logistics of the expeditionary fleet, but also managed the lucrative business interests of the clan.

The LMC, the Creation Association and the Larkinson Biotech Institute had all established a relatively strong presence on this booming planet.

While Ves just started to settle down in their temporary accommodations within the bowels of Razor Fort, Alexa Streon and Gavin Neumann already started to check up on the situation.

As the highest leader of the Larkinson Clan, there was no need for Ves to meet with the local branch leaders and supervise the various arrangements in person.

Ves could delegate most of the work and allocate the remainder of his time on more useful endeavors.

Now that his vacation came to an end, he could no longer spend much of his time on Bortele III on sightseeing tours.

Ves needed to fulfill his obligations to the Eden Institute and teach his classes by remote.

His children meanwhile already boarded another RA warship that brought them back to New Constantinople VIII.

It was better for them to return straight to the Terran port system so that they could attend their classes at the Joan Devos Elementary School in person.

Ves and Jovy also believed it was more prudent to keep the children away from their father for the following weeks.

The probability of an assassination attempt was too great at this time. Who knew how much collateral damage would result from such an incident.

It became a lot easier for the mechers to keep Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine safe when they were well out of the way.

Though Ves missed his children, he could still communicate with them on a daily basis by calling them over the galactic net.

The lack of distractions allowed Ves to focus much more on his work and duties.

While he made sure that he and his incarnations worked on his mech designs on a regular basis, he also started to spend more time on conducting research.

Ves managed to harvest so many insights as of late that he needed to convert his gains into actionable results.

The foundation of the Hyper Generation rested on the rapid development of hyper technology and E-technology.

At this stage, many competitors were scrambling to upgrade their lastgen mechs into proper hyper mechs.

Ves could not ignore this trend either. The LMC had already started to lay the groundwork on this expansive effort.

The problem was that the Design Department got hollowed out during an inconvenient time. Ves and Gloriana transferred to the Premier Branch while a lot of other lead designers chose to undergo years-long EdNet training.

The only lead designer left to hold the fort over there was Ketis.

She had taken on many more responsibilities because of that. It was not a surprise that she had not yet recruited enough Journeyman Mech Designers to restore the Design Department's ability to handle many second-class mech design projects at once.

Ves decided to call her in person to address this issue and more.

"I am impressed with what I saw back on Ocanon VI." Ves calmly spoke as he faced the projection of his former student. "The Swordmaidens over there have found a new way to synergize with their swordsman mechs that fits the new age. I can't help but notice that their cooperation could become a lot more effective if their mechs were more alive. Your Monster Slayers are only equivalent to first order living mechs. Think about how much more E energy they can harness if the mechs are second order living mechs instead."

Ketis crossed her arms. Her posture radiated a lot more strength and confidence than before. She had come into her own now that Ves had left her to fend for herself over at the expeditionary fleet.

She had designed numerous mechs and started up several interesting new research projects.

A lot of Swordmaidens and Heavensworders looked up to her for leadership and guidance.

Ketis and Venerable Dise also worked hard to explore how they could combine their traditional swordsmanship with E energy radiation.

It turned out that these two separate concepts synergized quite well with each other!

Swordmasters operating in a low energy environment were like fish on land.

Swordmasters operating in a medium energy environment were more like fish swimming in a shallow pool of water.

Though the pool was not large enough to comfortably accommodate most species of fish, they at least had access to enough water to unlock much of their buried potential!

"The oldest sword schools have carefully preserved ancient records that speak of this." Ketis solemnly explained to Ves. "While much of those records are written in foreign languages that we can barely understand, they speak of swordmasters that can launch wind blades, unleash fire storms, cut through the fabric of space and more. Many Heavensworders treat these outlandish claims as myths or wildly exaggerated boasts, but it is clear to us that there is a lot more truth to them than we thought. Our swordsmen and swordswomen have begun to explore the potential of sword styles that are special enough to call upon these forces."

"Does that mean that swordmasters such as yourself can become strong enough to fight against mechs head-on?" Ves speculatively asked.

"Not yet." Ketis immediately replied. "The comparison doesn't make sense. A swordmaster may become strong enough to defeat a mech or even a squad of mechs in the most extreme conditions, but there are too many shortcomings. Swordmasters cannot effectively threaten ranged mechs that keep their distance. It is also much harder for additional swordmasters to rise from the ranks."

"Shouldn't it be easier for all of those swordsmen to break through now that the environment has become more favorable?"

"That is true, but only to an extent. Many more sword initiates have emerged in the last year, especially once we started to hand out companion spirit fruits. The amount of Heavensworders who have become the equivalent of expert candidates has surprised all of us. It will take more effort for them to become the next generation of swordmasters, but once they do, we will gain a powerful troop of powerful infantry soldiers that can serve as excellent bodyguards, boarding troops and so on. They are not as powerful mech pilots, but they are far more flexible and suited for many missions."

Ves' eyes lit up. Sword initiates were the equivalent of expert candidates. Anyone who managed to get started in extraordinary swordsmanship had a high chance of becoming swordmasters, especially in the current climate.

Of course, these sword initiates also needed to receive expert guidance. They needed to master and perfect their swordsmanship to a superhuman degree. It was much harder for them to accomplish this by themselves.

This was why guidance from Ketis was so crucial for them all. Her swordsmanship had reached such an impressive height that she could easily bring up other swordsmen regardless of their individual sword styles!

As Ketis continued to explain her plan to raise an army of powerful swordmasters in the Heavensworder tradition, Ves already started to think about the implications of this development.

An army of swordmasters represented the rise of an entirely new force. Though many of these powerful sword fanatics had a strong aversion to using ranged weapons, they were practically invincible at close range!

Their intuition, their flexibility, their reliability and their dedication all turned them into supersoldiers that were much less ostentatious than expert pilots!

"I can certainly see how they can be useful to our clan, but don't fixate too much on them, okay? Swordmasters are not weak, but they cannot escape the fact that they are too small and weak to challenge mechs and warships, both of which are available in large numbers. Only the superior scale and firepower of mechs and warships can keep up with the endless number of phasefighters and alien warships of our enemies."

The projection of Ketis responded with a reassuring smile. "I have not forgotten about that either. I am a mech designer as well as a swordmaster. I do not want to neglect either of them. I have not slowed down any of my work related to mechs. The progress that I have made into strengthening swordmasters can also be translated back to my mech designs. This is how the Monster Slayers over at Ocanon VI are able to strengthen their swords and cut through much harder objects than they should. According to the five elements theory, swords, mechs and sharpness are all derivatives of the metal element."

Ves nodded multiple times when Ketis explained her work, but he did a double-take when he heard her last sentence!

"Are you making deliberate use of the five elements theory to design and improve your mechs?"

"In part." Ketis responded. "For now, I am trying to explore more powerful ways to strengthen my mechs with the metal element. It is the easiest way for me to upgrade the performance of my swordsman mechs and bring them into the Hyper Generation. Once I have made enough progress in this area, I will try and dabble into other elements. The one exception is the Storm Sword since I started it before the start of the Age of Dawn."

Her approach sounded quite fitting for her. Ketis had such a strong affinity to metal and its various subcategories that she could quickly make her mech designs stronger by delving deeper into this element.

"It sounds like you are on the right track. You do not even need to explore those other elements, do you know that? I am afraid that you will split your focus and waste too much time on trying to comprehend the other elements that you are not so good at. It would be a shame for you to underutilize your amazing affinity for metal."

Ketis appreciated her former teacher's well-intentioned warning, but she had her own plan.

"I know what I am doing, Ves. I do not want my work to stay so one-dimensional. There are many ways to design good swords and swordsman mechs, and I am confident that I can bring a few of them to life."

"Perhaps you should spend a bit of time on raising a few apprentices of your own. You can delegate much of this work to other mech designers while you focus on developing your core strengths."

"There are no other mech designers like me. I am unique." Ketis exasperatingly said. "Don't think that I have not tried to do something about this. The Swordmaidens have recruited multiple batches of young mech design students and tried to put them through their training program. The results... were not that good."

"Let me guess. The students who are smart enough to keep up their studies perform poorly in physical training. The students who are doing well in their swordsmanship classes are not intellectually gifted enough to study mech design."

"How did you know? That is a good summary of what we have seen so far. I would have thought that these second-raters could endure more hardship, but all of the mech design students that I have trained so far are not suited for combat. Their willpower is weak, their pain tolerance is disappointing and their progress in improving their swordsmanship is too low."

"Perhaps you are recruiting from the wrong pool of people. You need to recruit people who have endured a lot more hardship in their lives, like you for example. Perhaps it may be a better idea to recruit from third-raters instead. As long as their talents are good enough, you can fix their poor qualifications by investing in them. Does that sound like a better idea?"

"Hmm, you may have a point, but... 1 don't think we can wait that long. Second-raters need much less retraining and supplemental learning in order to become useful to our clan. I think I will continue to stick to my current plan, but I will apply different criteria to weed out the worst candidates."