The Mech Touch

The second contact event had become a drawn-out affair, but that was not necessarily bad to Ves. Taking it slow was safer than rushing forward. The risks of offending the other side due to cultural misunderstandings were too great!

Taking it step by step did not prevent the human visitors from violating any taboos, but it would be easy to take a step back and minimize any controversies that might occur.

As the ongoing talks between Venerable Tusa and the king fish had stalled, Ves had finally chosen to go forward at this time.

He grew nervous. He was well aware of the potential firepower the starship-sized king fish could unleash. This biological wonder was one of the more powerful individual entities that he had met in his life.

Ves had made the calculations and compared them to the estimated damage resistance capabilities of the Everchanger.

Though he bet that the masterwork expert mech would be able to survive long enough to get out of range of the king fish's strongest known attacks, the mech would definitely sustain a lot of damage to its Unending alloy!

If the king fish happened to possess a more lethal attack method, then it was hard to say whether the expert mech could hold out. Ves could only hope that Joshua was able to eject the cockpit in time.

I CAN ALREADY SENSE THE BIG WHALE'S POWER FROM THIS DISTANCE. ITS ENTIRE BODY IS FILLED WITH POTENTIAL ENERGY THAT IS JUST WAITING TO BE UNLEASHED.

Ves nodded in agreement. "That is to be expected. The king fish has shown exceptional capabilities, and all of that requires support. Its body is a giant carrier of power. Pay close attention to any major fluctuations. If the king fish wants to unleash any intensive attack, it has to accumulate energy from its body. That will be a tell-tale sign that it may turn on us in the next few seconds."

Of course, the king fish might know about this weakness and develop moves that didn't telegraph its attack patterns. The task force couldn't do anything about it except hope that the massive fish-whale wasn't able to fell too many mechs at once.

It felt strange for Ves to voluntarily approach a creature that already exuded the strength that was equivalent to an ace mech.

When the Everchanger had finally reached the Dark Zephyr's side, Ves was able to get an even better sense of the king fish.

Right now, the massive creature had shifted its massive eyes from the Dark Zephyr to the newly-arrived Everchanger.

Right now, Ves had instructed it to switch its design spirit to the Golden Cat.

Although she had little influence on other humans and aliens, the mascot of the Larkinson Clan possessed a bright and positive vibe that presented a friendly and relatively harmless front.

Was it deceptive? Ves didn't think so. The Golden Cat truly represented the Larkinson Clan's demeanor and was meant to prove that Task Force Fisherman did not come here to raid the Evolution Kingdom.

Ves waited for a response from the king fish.

"The king fish has become vigilant again." He observed. "It is not entirely comfortable with the approach of another mech."

This was a natural response. Compared to dispatching just one mech, the addition of a second one presented a marginally greater threat towards the Evolver fish-whales.

Ves still found it necessary to move forward, though.

If the circumstances were different, he didn't mind spending a few days or even weeks to slowly earn the Evolution Kingdom's trust.

Unfortunately, the tight schedule curtailed his options and forced him to maintain a faster pace than he thought was prudent.

He needed to fulfill as many of his objectives as possible within a week!

There was no way to persist after that as the MTA's reinforcements would finally arrive to take over his discoveries.

This was why Ves was not willing to slow down this process too much. There was a time for caution but there was also a time for boldness.

So far, the signs were good. The king fish and the surrounding Evolvers were more on guard but they did not look as if they were a single trigger away from blasting the two expert mechs with lethal attacks.

"Are we going to communicate with them soon, sir?" Venerable Joshua asked with a hint of tension in his voice. "If the fish whales don't get anything positive out of talking with us, they might choose to ignore us or push us away. No one likes a foreign army squatting right next door."

Ves nodded in agreement but maintained his stance. "You're right. We should hold proper talks soon. Make sure you keep yourself contained, Joshua. With your sensitivity and special strengths, I'm sure you can listen in and maybe even talk to the king fish, but no matter what is going on, I am the sole point of contact from our side. Your job is not to negotiate or befriend the fish-whales. Your job is to protect me and be ready to respond to any outbreak of hostilities that might occur, do you understand?"

"I understand…"

Venerable Joshua had already been briefed on what he was allowed to do, but a part of him definitely felt left out of the party.

As someone who befriended numerous design spirits and other odd creatures, Joshua developed a liking for meeting new and strange life forms.

His willpower quickened as he studied the different Evolver fish-whales floating above the surface of the Lab Continent.

Each of them could probably tell a lot of stories about themselves and their culture!

If they were not on such a critical mission, Ves might have been willing to indulge Joshua a bit. It was unfortunate that he could not risk the relationship between the expeditionary forces and the Evolution Kingdom.

Minimizing contact and controlling all communications through a single channel was the best way for Ves to control the situation. Nothing could be allowed to ruin his plans for this campaign.

His eyes glinted for a second before he purposefully withdrew his aggressive tendencies.

He closed his eyes and made a small connection to Lufa to 'reset' his mind in order to make absolutely certain that any thoughts about harming or exploiting the Evolver fish-whales had temporarily vacated his mind.

After that, he briefly considered his choices before donning a spiritual mask that caused his demeanor to undergo a significant change.

The use of spiritual masks to distort his mentality, thought patterns, body language and spiritual expression was an old technique of his. He rarely used it as of late because it wasn't necessary for him to engage in this deceptive trick towards his own clansmen.

That didn't mean that spiritual masks turned obsolete. They were still highly useful in dealing with all kinds of outsiders.

By consciously shaping his outward personality and behavior, he could consciously manipulate the impression that others would form of him. In a situation as critical as opening up a dialogue to a powerful alien fish-whale, such an old and relatively simple trick came in quite handy at the moment!

The spiritual mask he chose was not an average one, of course. None of the ones he prepared were rush jobs. In order to make sure they did the job without any flaws or shortcomings, he had spent hours on refining them. He did not hesitate to borrow the spiritual energies of numerous design spirits in order to take advantage of their spiritual attributes!

"From now on, I am just a mech designer with an interest in exploration and science."

In order to reduce the risk of exposure, Ves did not adopt a completely different personality from his 'normal' self.

Instead, he chose to isolate and emphasize a facet of himself, which in this case happened to be 'Ves the passionate mech designer'.

The spiritual mask he had donned a moment ago was based on ingredients based on himself, Vulcan and the Solemn Guardian.

He had carefully chosen this mix to generate the demeanor of a mech designer that was passionate and dedicated to his work without paying much attention to other concerns.

Ves wanted to downplay his greed, his responsibilities as a leader and his exploitative attitude towards the fish-whales and other native alien races hailing from the Red Ocean.

At no point should he ever show disdain or disrespect towards the king fish and its fellow Evolvers!

From now on, Ves had to see them as fascinating biological organisms that could provide him a lot of inspiration for his next mech designs!

Ves purposefully stimulated his mind so that he became a bit more scatter-brained. As he shifted his sight to various different Evolver fish-whales, he gained inspiration from several of them and began to imagine how he could translate their biological traits into innovative new mech designs.

Normally, he would try his best to push away these distractions when he met with other important people, but this happened to be a situation where being passionate to the point of getting a little absent-minded was a positive development!

He smiled. "Bring the Everchanger closer, Joshua. It's time to talk."

The expert hero mech had conspicuously stayed by the side of the Dark Zephyr so far. This put them at an equal level and made the king fish uncertain who to contact.

The advance of the green-coated expert mech cleared up the confusion. Under Ves' direction, the Everchanger did not raise its resonance shield or other defenses.

Joshua purposefully had to lower his guard in order to present the Everchanger as positively as possible. With the glow of the Golden Cat, the expert mech exuded a friendly, protective and family-oriented aura that was unlikely to provoke any hostility from the Evolver fish-whales.

Whether all of this was enough to initiate a proper dialogue would soon be clear!

Ves breathed a little heavier as the Everchanger continued to close the distance. The mech approached the Lab Continent and made itself more and more vulnerable against attacks.

"Stop. This is close enough."

Getting any closer was too risky and would make it far too easy for the fish-whales to prevent the Everchanger's retreat.

Ves wanted to show that he was willing to communicate, but that did not mean showing weakness.

With the backing of a thousand mechs, Ves had put himself well within the king fish's talking range.

Now, he just had to wait for the massive creature to reach out with his powerful mental communication method.

Ves had heard Tusa describe the sensation of getting contacted by the king fish by remote. The method was similar to how design spirits were able to speak to people, and that gave him a reference to the magnitude of the king fish's spirituality.

"This creature is not only powerful on this front, but also fairly proficient in its use. How many years has it spent on training its abilities?"

The king fish was obviously an old or even ancient creature. Every fish-whale's genetic code was derived from phase whale DNA, and that bestowed them with extraordinary strength and vitality. When combined with many targeted genetic treatments and biological mutations, Ves wouldn't be surprised if the king fish had lived over a million years!

This was the inherent unfairness of life. While some organisms such as humans struggled to live beyond half a millennium due to all of their racial shortcomings and deficiencies, large and massive races such as astral beasts did not need to undergo any artificial procedures to live thousands of years!

After reminding himself that he might be dealing with an old and incredibly wise creature, Ves further tried his best to restrain his wild side.

His disguise was so good at the moment that anyone who did not know him well would definitely dismiss as an over-eager nerd!

As another thirty seconds went by, both Ves, Joshua, the Everchanger and even Lucky froze in their tracks.

A distant but massive presence had descended onto them. Although it did not bear any hostility or aggression, the other side's wariness was hard to miss!

After the powerful presence scanned each of them, it eventually directed most of its attention towards Ves, as he had tried his best to reach out to the powerful entity.

Then, the alien communicated.

What others interpreted as a bunch of alien gibberish, Ves was able to interpret the actual meaning of the mental transmission.

If Ves was correct, the king fish had just greeted them with a single word.

OUTSIDERS.