The Mech Touch

When Ves participated in the design project that eventually yielded the Mars, he already held expectations that it could trigger the Cross Patriarch's second apotheosis.

Once Reginald advanced to ace pilot, it was logical for Benedict Cortez to upgrade the Mars into an ace mech.

Ves did not expect any further drastic changes after that. Reginald had already broken through at this point and exhausted his formidable accumulation.

If the leader of the Cross Clan wanted to become a stronger warrior, then he had little choice but to slowly grow his resonance strength while deepening his mastery with the Mars.

Ves also didn't expect the Mars to leap forward in terms of performance either.

The Cross Clan had invested a sizable proportion of its total wealth and assets into its development. The Crossers managed to obtain the cooperation of the top second-class development companies based in Davute and elsewhere.

Since the Mars already incorporated a lot of cutting-edge technology, it was impossible for the Cross Clan to upgrade the ace mech with significantly parts without spending ten times or even a hundred times more money!

As such, Ves simply assumed that Reginald and the Mars would undergo a slow and gradual growth process. The chances that either of them would leap ahead and gained a massive amount of strength were supposed to be minimal!

This was why Ves found it difficult to accept the dramatic changes that took place in a short amount of time.

As the Mars began to beat up the Neo Amadeus by firing concentrated attacks with its ranged weapon systems while using its superpowered flight system to stay out of the reach of its adversary's sword, Ves had no choice but to accept that the improbable had occurred!

Who knew that committing the first act of murder against a living mech could put Patriarch Reginald on this path?

"This shouldn't even happen." Ves sounded as if he couldn't accept the current reality. "There is no way that Reginald and the Mars should have gotten close to completing the first phase of the Mech Body Merger Process. This usually happens to senior ace pilots whose resonance strength has developed for a long time and has become a lot more powerful than when they have just broken through."

Ves never thought about Reginald initiating the Mech Body Merger Process at this stage because it almost always happened at the later stages of an ace pilot's progression!

In the past, Ves wasn't even qualified to know about this transcendent process. It wasn't until he became a tier 6 galactic citizen that he gained greater access to the MTA's internal library and got in touch with this high-level secret.

It turned out that when ace pilots believed that they had become powerful enough to advance to god pilot, they needed to start the long and dangerous transition to merge with their mechs.

The mech community did not understand anything about this transition in the past. Many ace pilots lost their lives as they made one mistake after another as they attempted to merge themselves with their mechs.

It was only after several hundreds years of trial and error that the MTA finally formulated a systematic roadmap for ace pilots to advance to god pilots.

The amount of casualties had dropped, but not by much, which showed how ace pilots literally had to bet with their lives in order to ascend to godhood!

The Mech Body Merger Process was split up into four phases.

The first phase was referred to as operation union. The ace pilot utilized his incredibly powerful force of will to baptize an ace mech that he had chosen to become his god mech over a long period of time.

As long as the ace pilot was powerful enough and channeled his willpower in the right way, he would eventually be able to form an indescribable connection to his ace mech that essentially turned it into his second body!

The mech industry was generally able to figure out whether an ace pilot completed this phase by testing whether the powerful individual still required a neural interface to pilot his ace mech.

If Ves and Gloriana's suspicions were correct, then Patriarch Reginald didn't even need a neural interface to control the movements and actions of the Mars!

The second phase of the Mech Body Merger Process was called domain field union. This was a process where the ace pilot was able to merge his Saint Kingdom with his bonded ace mech.

The third phase was called corporeal union. This was a highly metaphysical step where the ace pilot merged his fleshy body with his ace mech, allowing them to become one and the same.

The fourth and final phase was the most abstruse and difficult one of all. Ves had learned very little about this step, but from what he learned and what he could infer, total union described the near-impossible process where the ace pilot completely abandoned his last remaining ties to his mortality and completely merged his extraordinary willpower with his mech. This would make both of these elements one and the same, thereby causing the resulting combination to ascend into godhood!

Beginning the Mech Body Merger Process was an incredibly big deal. It wasn't supposed to happen when an ace pilot had recently broken through and only just started to make serious use of his first ace mech.

This was why Ves had incredibly mixed feelings about Patriarch Reginald's decisive act to convert the spiritual foundation of the Mars into his spiritual incarnation.

"Doesn't he know that completing the first phase of the Mech Body Merger Process has put him on the path of no return?!" Ves wondered. "There is no way for Reginald to change his mind anymore. From the moment he established a permanent bond with the Mars, they are bound in life as well as death."

Gloriana didn't look as concerned, though. "I do not think the MTA has neglected to inform Reginald of the consequences of this action. He knows. His powerful intuition should have warned him as well. Reginald has made his choice, Ves. Instead of spending decades to develop as an ace pilot and waiting for a mech designer to supply him with an ace mech that is designed to evolve into a god mech from the ground up, he has chosen to bet his future on the Mars without a second thought. I am honored that he appreciates my work so much to entrust his very life and career to our product. You should be as well, Ves. He would have never taken this step in advance if you hadn't provoked him into killing his own living mech."

Ves was about to go crazy!

"THIS WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! Besides, Patriarch Reginald should hardly be in the right state and mind to make such a life-changing choice. What is most egregious about the current situation is that this impulsive idiot literally can't afford to lose his ace mech anymore. By completing the first phase of the Mech Body Merger Process, the destruction of the Mars will directly feed back to its pilot. Ejecting the cockpit from the mech in combat has become pointless!"

It was not without reason why the Mech Body Merger Process was deemed the road of no return.

Previously, the Mars was an incredibly strong but ultimately expendable product. Reginald might become enormously pissed or depressed if his ace mech ever got scrapped due to participating in a losing battle, but eventually the pilot would be able to pick himself up and resume his career by piloting a brand-new ace mech designed for his use.

Patriarch Reginald pretty much kissed this option goodbye today. By turning the Mars into his incarnation, he tied his life into the machine in a way that bound their fates together.

This had many implications.

If the Mars ever got destroyed, Patriarch Reginald's mind and willpower would suffer such heavy damage that he would either become mentally crippled or become completely braindead!

If Patriarch Reginald wasn't able to pilot the Mars for an extended amount of time, both of them would slowly develop serious problems.

Fortunately, not all of the changes were negative.

If the Mars received a major upgrade and performed a lot better than before, then Patriarch Reginald's resonance strength would quickly rise in proportion.

Ultimately, in order for an ace pilot to successfully transition into a god pilot, he and his bonded ace mech must constantly strengthen themselves while also continuing to merge with each other!

Ves didn't have access to enough information to obtain more than the basic descriptions of this process, but every source he had access to constantly emphasized that most ace pilots were likely to fall before they completed all four phases!

This was why Ves was angry at Patriarch Reginald.

It was already bad enough that the ace pilot killed the innocent personality of his living mech. Though this violated the principles that Ves believed in, it was not as if it was an unforgivable mistake.

Ves had killed his fair share of people throughout his life, whether directly or indirectly.

What Ves truly found problematic was that Patriarch Reginald endangered the Golden Skull Alliance and by extension the Larkinson Clan by turning himself into a much less reliable combat asset!

By turning the Mars from an expendable to an irreplaceable machine, the consequences of losing a battle had become a lot more serious!

His wife didn't seem to pay attention to these dangers. All she cared about was that Patriarch Reginald had turned his Mars into the closest embodiment of her ambition to this date!

"Look at how much powerful the Mars has become!" Gloriana gushed as her eyes turned into stars. "I always knew that mechs could turn into the perfect vessels of their pilots as long as they were designed in the right way. It turned out that my second skin approach can truly make an ace pilot begin the lengthy process to advance to god pilot in advance! The risks may be great, but if Reginald and his Mars can continue to grow alongside each other for so many years, the fit between the two will gradually become so great that their chances of completing all four phases of the Mech Body Merger Process is bound to be higher than usual!"

Ves looked at his wife's projection in surprise. Though he wanted to refute her radical argument, her logic was quite sound this time!

Despite only possessing a shallow understanding of the Mech Body Merger Process, Ves still comprehended its overall purpose.

If ace pilots wanted to attain their third and most dangerous major breakthrough, they needed to form extremely deep bonds with their ace mechs.

Ves guessed that it was a lot harder for senior ace pilots to develop a strong emotional bond with a brand-new ace mech when they had already spent many decades piloting older and weaker ace mechs.

If these ace pilots were unable to develop a sincere affection towards their latest ace mechs, it didn't matter how powerful or how much high technology they gained access to. It was all pointless if the pilots couldn't solve the gap between themselves and their newest machines.

At least Patriarch Reginald shouldn't have to worry too much about this problem. The Mars was the source of his latest breakthrough and his affection towards it couldn't get any stronger!

"Remember what mech design is all about, Ves?" Gloriana asked.

"Mechs are designed to accommodate their pilots, not the other way around." Ves replied.

"Exactly. I won't tell you that your attempts to turn living mechs into equal partners to their pilots is wrong, but it is far from the only valid approach. At least in the case of a powerful pilot like Reginald, my vision and my work is able to provide him with the greatest possible help. Just look at the Mars right now. Can you see how its mysterious strengthening process is still ongoing even if it has slowed down? Its quality is slowly improving, which means my god body solution has finally taken effect! So many people throughout the Red Ocean are observing my work at the moment. With the latest changes, their admiration and worship towards the Mars are definitely feeding the ace mech's gradual transformation into a god in the form of a mech!"

In other words, this was the best day of Gloriana's life! Her spirituality became incredibly stimulated and her design seed stirred with excitement.

Her path towards advancing to Senior Mech Designer couldn't have been more obvious! The massive amount of insights and realizations that she had harvested from this battle provided her with so many clues that she was confident that she could take the next step within the following decade!