The Mech Touch

It was difficult for Ves to explain the full magnitude of what it meant to make the fey alive.

He tried the best he could, but he was afraid that most people wouldn't understand the full implications until his customers started to talk about it in their own words.

He tried to do his best as he wanted his customers to have as few surprises as possible when they purchased his products.

Ves gestured towards the different fey types that he had designed for his Fey Fianna.

"Each individual Fey Fianna mech is alive. At the same time, it is home to four subordinate lives that can act as the lives inside a fey. The metal spurs are not alive by themselves, but they are akin to empty living shells that can easily be taken over by one of the subordinate lives of a Fey Fianna. There are many advantages to this arrangement. If any of the fey are ever destroyed in battle, then the living entity that used to occupy it can return to the main body. Once a new fey is assigned to the Fey Fianna, that existing living entity can enter a new body and resume its growth!"

All of this sounded far too complicated and convoluted when conveyed through words alone, but that was why Ves accompanied his words with a visual presentation.

He could feel that many of his viewers did not actually remain confused in the end. It became clear enough how the living fey were supposed to work in this context.

The hardware was disposable, but the lives contained within were priceless!

One of the most crucial design solutions behind this seamless puppetry and fey takeover process was that it actually borrowed from Gloriana's second skin approach!

Gloriana's second skin living mechs primarily centered around allowing human mech pilots to embody living mechs to a much deeper extent than usual.

The current implementation in the Fey Fianna design was to treat the subordinate spirits as 'pilots' of their own fey!

It was an ingenious arrangement that largely reduced the pain from losing a lot of fey. The loss of all of that hardware would definitely be costly to replace, but the true heritage and accumulation of the Fey Fianna remained completely intact!

"Each of the four living fey of every mech is precious and valuable." Ves affectionately said as he caressed the different fey as if they were welcoming pets. "The pain of losing them may not be evident at the start, but as long as you continue to invest in the growth of the Fey Fianna, they become increasingly more powerful and irreplaceable. Just as how veteran mech pilots can easily defeat multiple rookies in most fights, a Fey Fianna with living fey that have evolved for many years simply cannot be bought in any of our stores."

He smirked as he made use of various projections to show how older Fey Fiannas could become increasingly more powerful while fearlessly sacrificing their fey whenever it was necessary to complete their missions.

The spurs of a drone mech had to retain their disposable property in order to remain useful!

If a Fey Fianna could not afford to lose any of its fey for fear of killing off the crucial living entities, then no mech pilot would dare to take any risks.

This defeated the purpose of a drone mech!

"The addition of multiple living entities anchored to a single living mech frame is one of the latest refinements of my living mechs." Ves emphasized his vital contribution to this impressive arrangement. "Designing mechs that are alive and can evolve by themselves is too simple for a more complicated model such as the Fey Fianna. Only the attachments of multiple subordinate lives can make this drone mech gain so much potential. Each living fey can not only be restored without being too picky with their physical bodies, but they are all able to learn and develop their unique techniques!"

There were still a few downsides and limitations related to the possibility of transferring the subordinate spirits from one physical shell to another.

A living entity that spent years mastering the capabilities of a fire beam luminar crystal cannon fey would have to learn a lot of tricks from scratch if it was transferred to a water space suppressor fey!

Perhaps the living entity was unable to make this transition at all due to the inability to master additional E energy attributes.

Ves was unable to tell what would happen if such a scenario took place. It was fine if the living entities weren't too adaptable. There were always possibilities for the Fey Fianna to spawn additional subordinate spirits!

"Unlike many other drone mech models on the market, our Fey Fianna is optimized to fight with four fey at the start. This is the optimal number that we have settled upon after exploring multiple alternatives. Four living fey does not sound like much, but when each of them can become powerful on their own, you will learn to respect their strength and abilities just like how we treat our own human heroes."

The implication here was that every subordinate spirit had the capability to grow and break through just like human mech pilots!

Such a complicated and powerful arrangement sounded impossible to many people, but Ves somehow made it clear that he had succeeded in bringing it to life through his presentation!

A lot of leaders and mech designers who had attempted to imitate living mechs each understood how far ahead Ves had gotten.

"The small field of living mechs has advanced by a considerable extent. If Professor Larkinson's claims about the potential of these 'subordinate spirits' are true, then he has developed a design application that will take many years for our new specialists to master, if that is possible at all. By then, it is likely that he has already leapt ahead and developed another major improvement to his living mech systems."

This was the annoying part about falling behind in a new and exciting field. Living mechs existed long enough now to spawn a lot of initiatives aimed at replicating them with their own personnel.

The Terrans actually enjoyed a head start in this as Ves freely shared his knowledge in the courses he taught at the Eden Institute.

Even so, it was a bit difficult to expect mech design students who have yet to complete their programs to design living mechs on the spot!

Sooner or later, the monopoly on living mechs would break, and Ves would no longer be as lonely as before.

There was no reason at all for him to feel concerned about this. The successful development of multi-spirit mechs was such a major advancement that his living mechs would assuredly remain the leader in this aspect!

Over and over, Ves emphasized the fact that the subordinate spirits could not only maintain their lives so long as the main body of the Fey Fianna did not get destroyed, but also grow and develop as if they were actual human qi cultivators!

It was a bit difficult to make his audience realize the significance of that last part through explanations alone.

The upcoming demonstrations and exhibition matches were crucial to making his audience understand how important it was to the total package!

Ves smiled as he floated among the living fey. After explaining what they shared in common, he began to explain the individual strengths of each fey type.

"So far, our LMC has only developed a handful of distinct fey types, but more will be developed in the future based on market demand and technological breakthroughs. Every fey model serves its own purpose. There are currently two offensive fey models that you can choose from, and their selection will have many implications for the Fey Fianna that make use of these killer machines."

Ves flew next to a fire beam luminar crystal cannon fey and patted his palm against its surface.

"The most convenient offensive fey at our disposal is this particular one. Armed with a fourth generation luminar crystal cannon, it can fire persistent hyper energy beams. It is especially powerful if it is able to output fire-attributed laser beams at different targets. Once this fey gets going, it can burn enemy targets with the power of fire and heat with firepower that is roughly equivalent to that of a complete ranged mech, especially if it has evolved for a time!"

This was a new concept that Ves constantly had to remind his audience. He had to make it clear to everyone that the hard performance of his living mechs were no longer as static as before.

The reality-distorting properties of E energy make it possible to empower the hardware of any living mech or fey. This could lead to a substantial amplification in the future!

The troublesome part about this was that it all took time. The experiences of every living mech was unique, so their growth trajectory was not uniform at all. Every living mech became defined by their individual journeys. They were no different than human cultivators in this regard.

Ves commanded one of the Standard Fey Fianna to become more active.

To be more specific, he asked the mech pilot to activate the hyper tech on all of the hardware at his disposal.

Multiple energy vortices came to life. The main body of the Fey Fianna began to absorb copious quantities of water energy. The different fey all started to absorb their own associated E energy attributes.

"As many mech pilots have gradually come to know, the performance of hyper mechs can fluctuate when they start to harness the power of multiple E energy attributes at once. This is most dangerous and difficult to separate with single mechs, but drone mechs such as my Fey Fianna are different. As you can see, as long as the fey keep their distance from any other conflicting unit, they can draw power from E energy radiation with fewer scruples!"

The fey only had to remain far enough from the main body in order for a water-based mech to make optimal use of its fire hyper materials!

All of this and more made the fire luminar crystal cannon fey into an attractive choice. It was efficient, longer lasting and not as heavy and bulky as the other offensive fey!

Ves slapped the side of the earth gauss cannon fey. "This is a considerably different beast than the previous fey model. It is larger, slower and heavier. The gauss cannon that can be equipped by this fey is integrated with earth hyper materials. This is an excellent combination as the living fey can continually learn how to apply the power of earth in each subsequent attack. The more it is put to use, the more the living fey will figure out better ways to empower its attacks. It is much like an expert pilot in this regard, though it mainly relies on E energy rather than true resonance to amplify its performance!"

His words gave mech pilots the hope of wielding power that was comparable to an expert pilot without breaking through themselves!

How could they not feel tempted by this possibility? This alone was enough to earn the support of a lot of eager mech pilots!

The aliens became more dangerous every day. Their quantity could crush the forces of red humanity and the major races often enjoyed a crushing advantage against second-class mech forces.

More and more mech forces learned that they needed all of the power they could get, and if they were unable to add any expert mechs to their mech roster, then buying a lot of living mechs should yield much better results!

What pained these mech pilots was that the LMC was too damn slow. Its first true living mech model of the Hyper Generation was a drone mech rather than any of the staple mech types!

How long would it take for the LMC to release other hyper mechs?!