The Mech Touch

Ultimately, Ves issued a verdict that fell in line with Ketis' demands.

This decision might end up backfiring on the Larkinson Clan, but that was a risk that he accepted.

Just as Ketis had said, it was all about trust. When Ves thought about how much his expert pilots had grown and how earnestly they fought on behalf of his clan, he felt they earned the right to make decisions on how their mechs should be configured.

That didn't mean that mech designers were forbidden from providing their own input, but the overall wishes of the expert pilot should be respected first.

After talking to Ketis and Dulo, it became clear that there may be a possibility for the Riot to follow a more varied development strategy than the First Sword. This was because they judged that Venerable Orfan should be a lot more open to equipping her expert mech with additional weapon systems.

Now that they completed their discussion on the Riot and the First Sword, the Journeymen proceeded to go over the other expert mechs.

There was not much to say about the Amaranto as it performed up to expectations and no further.

Though it was disappointing that Venerable Stark could not put her incredible firepower to better use during the Battle of Pima Prime, she had little opportunity to do more when the Star of Liberation constantly forced the Amaranto to duck its head.

The discussion regarding the Minerva and the Blade Chaser Mark II became a little more interesting.

"I think the Ingvar siblings acquitted themselves well." Gloriana spoke. "Commander Casella and Venerable Imon are not the best at duels, but they succeeded in fending off the famous Tensars."

Ves hadn't paid that much attention to this particular bout because a lot more interesting duels took place. The most notable one was the confrontation between the Mars and the Neo Amadeus.

Nevertheless, he still recognized that the Minerva and the Blade Chaser Mark II did okay considering that the Arma Tensar and the Fila Tensar exerted a huge amount of pressure with their iconic Slipdream rifles.

Ves remained silent and let the others talk while he observed the footage of the fight.

The Minerva had caught the attention of the Sundered Phalanax early on due to Commander Casella Ingvar's characteristic ability to boost the performance of thousands of friendly mechs.

In order to prevent the Commandeered mechs from tearing apart their opponents on the battlefield, the Minerva quickly came under siege by numerous dangerous opponents.

The Tensars were the most prominent among them. The two powerful expert rifleman mechs mostly stuck to medium range and tried their best to wear down the Minerva by firing a continuous barrage of combination laser-positron beams.

The Minerva was not a tough mech by nature, and its resonance shield quickly drained under the powerful precision strikes launched by the Tensars.

This forced Commander Casella to stop Commandeering her fellow Larkinsons and concentrate all of the power she could lend to her brother instead.

The Blade Chaser Mark II became a lot more powerful from this boost, but that didn't necessarily solve the crisis because Venerable Imon's expert mech still needed to close in on his opponents.

Though the Blade Chaser Mark II was fast, the Arma Tensar and the Fila Tensar were faster!

The two Sundered Phalanx expert mechs continually maintained their distance while constantly firing their rifles at their pursuer.

If this went on, the dual-wielding swordsman mech would eventually get shot to pieces by all of the powerful energy beams!

The situation changed when Venerable Imon eventually recalled that the clan gifted his expert mech with a brand-new weapon.

From the moment the Blade Chaser Mark II put away one of its swords and unholstered the Gray Lotus, the situation changed.

Though Venerable Imon did not specialize in marksmanship, his ability to wield firearms was still good due to his strength as an expert pilot.

When the Blade Chaser Mark II started firing its new pistol at the Arma Tensar, the latter's resonance shield suffered a surprising amount of damage!

Imon and everyone else who paid attention to this fight reacted with surprise as they saw how an expert swordsman mech was able to inflict just as much if not more damage than a dedicated expert rifleman mech!

Subsequent shots proved that the initial hit was not a fluke. The Gray Lotus was much smaller than the Slipdream rifles wielded by the Tensars, but continually showed its incredible might in the hand of an expert mech that was never designed to fight at range in the first place!

"What is that gun?" Cormaunt Hempkamp asked. "I am still new to the clan and its unique technologies, but I am certain that I have never seen this sort of energy weapon before. How has it allowed Venerable Imon to successfully constrain the Tensars until the Sundered Phalanx initiated a general retreat?"

Ves smirked with pride. "There are several reasons why the Gray Lotus has proven to be so effective under those circumstances. First, the Gray Lotus is a new type of luminar crystal weapon of mine that is designed to deal death-based damage. You can think of it as a smaller and more controlled version of the death energy battle formations that have made the Penitent Sisters and the Glory Seekers so feared. Though it is best employed against mundane targets, death energy can be highly damaging towards true resonance for reasons that I can't explain in a short amount of time."

Several Journeymen became a lot more interested in the Gray Lotus when they learned that it was a brand-new luminar crystal weapon.

"Second, while I did not explicitly design the Gray Lotus with true resonance in mind, Venerable Imon can still resonate with it to an extent because it is a living weapon that I have crafted by myself. Imon's distinctive traits have empowered the death beam and granted it with additional properties that have made it more explosive."

"Third, Commander Casella applied her Single Empowerment resonating ability to the Blade Chaser Mark II." Ves continued. "This means that the pistol already gained another boost in power due to addition of the Minerva's true resonance. This is probably the deciding factor why the Gray Lotus was able to pack enough of a punch to pressure the Tensars."

As far as experiments went, the Gray Lotus already became a success. Venerable Imon had also been able to test out the new weapon based on the Death Lotus on more mundane targets such as mechs, bunkers and other fortifications.

It turned out that the gray beams fired by this new relic weapon did not deal a lot of material damage. An ordinary laser beam could easily inflict more damage onto an armor plate or a solid structure.

However, that wasn't important. Similar to transphasic energy weapons, a part of the energy beam phased through solid obstacles without encountering any hindrances and proceeded to directly snuff out the spiritualities of any people in its way.

The result of that was that the Gray Lotus could essentially kill mech pilots directly in their cockpits without needing to break it open first!

The handy pistol achieved even more ridiculous results when the Blade Chaser Mark II fired at enemy starships and fortifications. Meters of thick protective layers failed to block the most damaging component of the gray beams, thereby causing all of the vulnerable Fridaymen personnel to become braindead in an instant!

Numerous mech designers became increasingly more attracted by the power and capabilities of this new weapon.

Gloriana became particularly optimistic about its value proposition. "I never thought you would be able to channel Helena's power in this practical manner so soon, Ves. Can you produce more of them or whatever new luminar crystal that is responsible for making it so deadly?"

Ves shook his head in regret. "I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. The Gray Lotus is one of a kind, and I don't foresee the possibility of equipping other mechs and people with comparable weapons. The reason why I can't make more is because I was about to make its attack phase crystal with the help of a rare material. Unless I can get more of it, there is no way to make more weapons like this mech pistol."

He only obtained Black Demon Steel by coincidence. Ves had already looked up whether he could find a source of this special alloy, but he failed to find a single mention of it on the galactic net.

"That is disappointing news." Juliet sighed. "My fellow Penitent Sisters would have loved it if their Valkyrie Redeemer Mark II's were able to wield luminar crystal rifles that could produce the same effects."

There was nothing much to talk about after that. The Gray Lotus was powerful, but it largely remained a curiosity unless Ves found a way to invent comparable weapons that could be mass produced.

The discussion went back on track. Ultimately, nobody thought there was anything wrong with the Minerva and the Blade Chaser Mark II. They just got targeted by a powerful enemy duo and managed to keep themselves intact.

The topic shifted towards a number of other expert mechs such as the Promethea and the C-Men, both of which showed excellence under certain circumstances.

When the Everchanger finally came up, numerous Journeymen brought up its powerful mounted wargear.

"The City Breaker was powerful in some ways, but disappointing in other ways." Miles Tovar carefully said. "It is large and is mounted with numerous powerful cannons. However, I think it lasted shorter than it should. A 'mech' of this size should have been able to hit harder, withstand more damage and last longer."

Gloriana did not entirely agree with this assessment. "You can't blame this mounted wargear loadout for that, Mr. Tovar. This sort of mountable equipment is inherently more inefficient than a cohesive mech that is just as large and heavy. The Everchanger was never designed for siege warfare, so it is still an impressive technical accomplishment for it to be able to imitate an artillery mech with all of this gear."

"I think Miles makes a good point." Ves said. "The City Breaker only barely did its job, but that was mostly because the Sundered Phalanx feared its firepower so much that they concentrated a lot of fire on the combination. The inability for Venerable Joshua to cover everything with a resonance shield meant that it was impossible for him to match a true expert artillery mech."

It was easy to point out the various shortcomings of the City Breaker, but it was a lot harder to suggest improvements. The only way to increase its performance was to upgrade it with more expensive and powerful parts, which was not really a groundbreaking solution.

Compared to the City Breaker, the Titan-5 Project sparked a lot more interest and controversy.

"Let me begin by stating the obvious to you." Gloriana began as she directly addressed her husband. "You went too far with the Titan-5 Project."

Ves already expected to hear an admonishment with regards to the meat suit, so he did not take his wife's remarks too hard.

"In what way, exactly?"

Gloriana looked disapproving. "There are too many to count. I know you poured an unreasonable amount of funding and biological resources to its ongoing development project. The City Breaker is practically a bargain compared to the excessive amount of attention that you have devoted to the Titan-5 Project."

"You can't deny that the meat suit added a lot of power to the Everchanger. Considering that its performance effectively matched that of a high-tier expert mech while it remained effective, I do not consider it a waste to work on it for so long."

"The Titan-5 Project is a living monstrosity that we can barely control! Have you seen how violent it is? It was able to devour and crush the Point Break on its own. I have never seen a living mech go on the attack like this! What prevents it from turning against our own? All I see is a disaster in the making!"

Gloriana hated mechs and products that couldn't be controlled! It didn't matter to her whether the Titan-5 Project was the most powerful mounted wargear loadout by far. Its monstrous appearance and behavior introduced a lot of hidden dangers to the Larkinson Clan!