The Mech Touch

Ves was disappointed that he could not make widespread use of blinking organs.

Unless he dispatched his troops to slaughter the nearby Swarmer hordes en masse, it was hard to gather more than a couple of dozen blinking organs that the expeditionary forces had already gathered up until this point.

Although Ves was tempted to order his troops to launch an all-out hunt on the assassin fish, the chances were too great that slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Swarmer fish-whales might alarm the guiding intelligence of the Swarm Kingdom!

After the exobiologists had studied the fish-whales in many different ways, they developed numerous theories and insights regarding the most formidable and most numerous threat in Purgatory.

Since there were millions of Swarmers, the loss of thousands or tens of thousands of fish-whales didn't change the overall situation. There was no reason to pay attention to the deaths or disappearance of a few hordes.

A lot of fish-whales already died each day due to cannibalization. The possible queen of the Swarm Kingdom also sent several hordes towards the other fish-whale kingdoms on a regular basis in order to consume their strength.

The point was that losses at this level were trivial to the Swarm Kingdom, but that would no longer be the case if they became ten times as much!

If the total presence of fish-whales on the Gate Continent dropped by 10 percent or more, then that would definitely affect the overall situation of the landmass!

There was no way the Swarmers would remain ignorant at that point! Otherwise, it would have been easy for the other three kingdoms to exploit this shortcoming and weaken the Swarm Kingdom over time.

In short, there was a limit to how many blinking organs the expeditionary forces could obtain by harvesting them from assassin fish bodies.

The best way to 'produce' blinking organs aside from reserve engineering them was to set up a sustainable farm.

Unfortunately, this plan was completely impractical due to the special way they emerged.

The weak and most common white fish-whales served as the embryonic base of every elite fish-whale. The chances that any of them might be able to break through their base forms and reach an entirely new height was low. Not even eating a lot of fish-whale flesh and participating in a lot of fights could guarantee their advancement.

Yet once they succeeded, they became a completely different fish-whale!

"The grunt fish should have been called the pawn fish instead. As long as they are able to reach the other side of the chessboard, they can advance into any other chess piece!"

There was no practical way to domesticate a lot of white fish-whales and hope that a few of them might evolve into red fish-whales one day.

The Dragon's Den simply couldn't hold that many fish-whales!

Even if she could, the fish-whales were violent, unruly and difficult to suppress!

There were many other barriers to breeding the Swarmer fish-whales outside of Purgatory. One of the key elements that was missing was the method to breed the white fish-whales!

No one figured out how they were born in large numbers. The exobiologists speculated that the Swarm Kingdom set up spawning pools where juveniles quickly emerged and grew en masse.

If these special pools existed, then they must certainly be key protection targets!

The moment a mech force attempted to fight its way to a spawning pool, the Swarm Kingdom would definitely take notice of the human intruders!

In the end, the only way to continuously breed assassin fishes and harvest their blinking organs on a sustainable basis was to gain control over Purgatory.

It would be great if he could conquer or at least gain permanent access to this wondrous pocket space. This way, his mechs could continuously enter and harvest all of the resources generated from within.

His eyes almost grew red as he thought of all of the gains he could make if he turned Purgatory into his private farm. From phasewater to obtaining all kinds of strong and wondrous organisms, this phase whale enclave was a true paradise!

He sighed. "It's too bad I won't be able to keep it. There's no way I can claim this pocket space."

The Mech Trade Association was still looming over his shoulder. The mechers had already shown how much they valued the giant phase whale skeleton.

When faced with a larger pocket space that contained lots of phasewater and other ancient phase whale arrangements, the greedy mechers would definitely lay claim to his discovery!

Ves would only be able to obtain a few crumbs that he could gather through his own efforts. No matter how many blinking organs or phasewater he obtained, harvesting them once was incomparable to harvesting them year and year!

The MTA was the ultimate winner of this excursion no matter what he did. A ship was already on the way in order to assume ownership of the recent discoveries.

Once the vessel arrived, Ves could already predict that there was no opportunity for the Golden Skull Alliance to make any further gains in the Garimel System.

This meant that the expeditionary forces were on a time limit!

They needed to fulfill their goals as much as possible in the following week!

Once Ves recalled the time pressure that he was facing, he no longer spent as much time on studying the various dead fish-whale corpses and headed over to one of the workshops in Fort Fishblood.

As he entered the space, he could already spot the Everchanger resting quietly in the middle.

The expert mech was waiting to be modified.

Venerable Joshua was resting not too far away from the dormant expert mech. The talented expert pilot immediately perked up once Ves and his bodyguards came over.

"Sir! You are finally here. I have been waiting for your arrival."

"Joshua." Ves waved at the familiar expert pilot. "Are you concerned about the changes that I am planning to make to your battle partner?"

"No. Well, I'm not worried about what you will do to the Everchanger. You designed it in the first place, and you also turned it into a masterwork. I… am just concerned about piloting my mech with you inside my cockpit. No offense, sir, but is it truly a good idea to allow a mech designer like yourself to ride alongside me while I pilot my mech?"

Ves smiled. "It's not unheard of for mech designers to do so, although it is an extremely rare occurrence for expert mechs. The cockpit of the Everchanger is a bit roomy for a single person, so it isn't difficult to modify its interior so that the both of us can sit in the same space. You will just have to get used to less room."

"I do not care about the lack of room. I can handle this hardship. What I am truly wondering about is whether I will be able to resonate with the Everchanger as effectively as always. Having you around might not do me any favors. It will be harder for me to focus on the battle and defeat the enemies in the way if I constantly have to worry about your safety."

Ves dismissively waved his armored hand. "Don't restrain your piloting due to my presence in the cockpit. As you can see from combat armor, I am not as fragile as you think. We're not heading out in order to pick a fight, but if any of the fish-whales think they can take us down, don't hold back."

It was clear that words were not enough. Venerable Joshua was not a weak expert pilot, but he did not wish to bear the responsibility of carrying the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan into danger!

Practically no mech designer would take the initiative to venture deep into a treacherous region!

While the Evolver Kingdom might not necessarily turn hostile towards the humans, the possibility of getting attacked by the powerful king fish and the other Evolver fish was not low!

If an incident ever broke out, Venerable Joshua would constantly get distracted by the burden of protecting the patriarch. This was such a heavy burden that he might not be able to enter into the right mind state.

This was crucially important to expert pilots like Joshua. Much of their strength was derived from their extraordinary willpower, which in turn was based on their thoughts and emotions.

It was a lot easier for expert pilots to leverage their full strength if there were no distractions. This was one of the reasons why expert pilots such as Venerable Stark and Venerable Jannzi progressed the fastest.

Venerable Joshua possessed a more messy mind so he found it a bit more difficult to fight in his best state.

Ves did not waste any further time on words. He figured that the only way to convince the expert pilot that everything would be fine was to apply the modifications and proceed with the mission.

He studied the Everchanger's current state for a moment before pulling up the altered design.

He had already worked on altering the cockpit and performing numerous other tweaks. Since he was about to entrust his life to his own work, he might as well put in additional effort and optimize the expert mech's configuration for the upcoming mission.

Modifying an expert mech was never an easy task. The challenge was especially considerable when working on a masterwork mech.

Still, this was not an issue for Ves. He was the lead designer of the Everchanger and also possessed a high affinity for mechs. He was so attuned to the expert hero mech that he could probably go freestyle and make spontaneous changes without making it any weaker!

It wasn't necessary to go this far. Ves strictly abided by his plan and completed the necessary changes in the span of a couple of hours.

He enjoyed this little moment. Revisiting his completed works held additional meaning to him because all of his products were alive. They started out as newborns and steadily grew into more formidable living mechs when used for their intended purpose.

This was especially the case for a masterwork that was paired with an expert pilot! The growth conditions of the Everchanger were so superior that Ves found it fascinating to check up on the Everchanger's current state.

"You've taken after your pilot, Everchanger." Ves said towards the expert mech as he was putting the final touches to the alterations in the cockpit. "It's no surprise, really. You are exposed to Venerable Joshua practically every day. He is by far the pilot you are most familiar with. Who knows what you would have looked like if you were paired with any other expert pilot."

JOSHUA IS THE ONLY PILOT THAT I WILL SERVE. THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE MADE ME FOR, CREATOR.

Ves twitched a smile. "I am glad to hear your dedication. Anyway, you have already existed for a while now. While you are still at the start of your product life cycle, you have already gone through a lot of experiences. During these times, I am sure that you have encountered moments where you wish you were stronger or weren't lacking a feature. Do you have any special requests that you want me to look into? I can't promise you that I will address all of your complaints, but I am curious to hear what you think should be improved."

A few seconds of silence passed before his living mentally gave its reply.

NOW THAT YOU ARE BRINGING THIS UP, I DO HAVE A LOT OF PROBLEMS THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED. JUST BECAUSE I AM A MASTERWORK MECH DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE REACHED MY IDEAL STATE.

FIRST, MY MECHS VARIABLE COATINGS. JUST LIKE HOW YOU HUMANS LIKE TO WEAR DIFFERENT CLOTHES, I WOULD LIKE TO ENTER BATTLE WITH A DIFFERENT APPEARANCE.

SECOND, I NEED A WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH HUMANS IN A MORE NORMAL MANNER. YOU NEED TO GIVE ME ACCESS TO THE SPEAKERS AND OTHER ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION CHANNELS SO THAT I CAN SPEAK WITH AUDIBLE WORDS.

THIRD, LIVING MECHS LIKE MYSELF SPEND A LOT OF TIME DOING NOTHING WHEN WE ARE INACTIVE AND STUCK IN OUR BERTHS. YOU NEED TO GIVE US ACCESS TO THE GALACTIC NET SO THAT WE CAN BROWSE FOR INFORMATION AND PLAY GAMES WITH EACH OTHER.

FOURTH, I AM LACKING A SHIELD THAT CAN HELP ME PERFORM A DEFENSIVE FUNCTION WHEN IT IS NECESSARY. THIS IS A MAJOR GAP IN MY CAPABILITIES THAT LIMITS MY ADAPTABILITY.

FIFTH…