The Mech Touch

It was hard to imagine that Ves was conducting serious research at this time.

For the last few days, he became so engrossed in his latest pet project that he behaved a little different from a little boy who had just received a brand-new toy.

The truth was not that far from the truth. Though Ves had created his fair share of innovations over the past few years, none of them were as powerful or impactful as the discovery of design spirit channeling.

By anchoring a design spirit to an object in a specific way, Ves could create a condition where the entity in question was able to interfere with the operation of the item in a material way.

This went beyond the traditional operation of design spirits in mechs and totems that had been implemented in the past.

Mechs such as the Ferocious Piranha or totems such as the Four Aspects of Lufa mostly derived their special value from their glows.

However, Ves always felt disappointed with his implementation of design spirits because entities such as Lufa could not really do anything aside from playing the role of a distant supervisor.

The only concrete actions that these spirits could take to influence the humans making use of living mechs or totems was to radiate their auras.

If they were feeling generous towards specific individuals, the design spirits could also reach deeper and communicate directly with people.

The only products made by Ves that were able to channel more than a symbolic amount of might from their design spirits were his living expert mechs.

The Riot, the First Sword and the Shield of Samar prominently demonstrated this capability in the last battle. Ves could have made the connection earlier if he studied these cases more thoroughly.

It did not surprise him that these three expert mechs happened to demonstrate power similar to what he was able to reproduce in his lab under different conditions.

Three aforementioned expert mechs were all living mechs as well as prime mechs. Not only that, but they all happened to be watched over by Qilanxo, a fairly old creature that had spent centuries growing up in an anomalous environment that was enriched with higher-dimensional energies.

The unique environment along with the wars and rivalries against other spiritually active exobeasts allowed Qilanxo to develop a rich mastery of spiritual manipulation.

Ves recalled that Qilanxo had also made a permanent pact with Venerable Orfan, Venerable Dise and Venerable Jannzi through a mysterious spiritual technique.

When Ves looked down at the weapon in his hands, understanding began to dawn in his eyes.

"It turns out that I have inadvertently reproduced this phenomenon in a simplified manner.

The relationship between Qilanxo and her so-called chosen was deep, profound and mysterious.

The relationship between the Phase King and the blessed weapons that Ves had made were not as complex.

However, these two phenomena shared a lot of similarities, which convinced Ves that their underlying principles were the same!

"It makes a lot of sense!"

The key principle was that Ves more deeply anchored the design spirit into a living product through the use of a crucial material.

Qilanxo was somehow able to substitute this material by paying another price, but Ves wasn't able to do so through his current means.

So far, the only way for him to anchor a design spirit into his living products was to use a material that possessed a high compatibility for a specific attribute of spiritual energy.

He identified two viable materials up to this point.

Black Demon Steel played well with Helena, but Ves had no way to obtain more of this metal. He had discreetly scoured the galactic net and the resource markets of Davute for any trace of it, but Ves had not even found a single record that matched its properties.

It was extremely unlikely for Ves to be able to gain more of this mysterious metal unless the System threw him another bone.

In comparison to the complete lack of availability of Black Demon Steel, phasewater could be found in every corner of the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy!

Sure, the demand of this liquid exotic was so extreme that ordinary people had no chance of obtaining a single drop, but the Larkinson Clan was different.

The deal he recently made with the Hexadric Hegemony ensured that the clan would receive 5 kilograms of phasewater a year!

While this was far from enough phasewater to meet all of the Larkinson Clan's growing needs, it was more than enough for Ves to build up a modest collection of powerful weapons and equipment that was blessed by the Phase King!

The central importance of materials that could anchor design spirits inside a living product was so great that Ves coined a new term to describe their role in this context.

"Let's call them sympathetic materials."

He used the word 'sympathetic' for multiple reasons. It was not only a word that described how a material might relate to a powerful living being, but also emphasized the conditional nature of this relationship.

If the design spirit refused to cooperate as was the case at the start of his first testing session, then the use of a sympathetic material made no difference.

The reality of blessed weapons was that they derived a substantial portion of their power from the source of blessing.

Fortunately, Ves had just forged a new accord with the Phase King.

The agreement essentially obliged the Phase King to lend his power to the blessed weapons that were tied to him without holding back.

In exchange, Ves would periodically bring more spiritual fish-whales to life. This way, the Phase King would have more little brothers to boss around.

Although Ves felt annoyed for adding another long-term commitment to his plate, in truth the price he paid was far less than what he got in return.

Blessed weapons performed so much better than their regular counterparts that they could truly make a difference in a battle!

Expert mech duels that would have ended in a draw or a defeat could end in victory by leveraging the strength of the Phase King!

Of all of the design spirits that Ves had at his disposal, none of them were more suitable for this situation than the Phase King!

The entire frontier and this entire time period revolved around phasewater. Groups that were able to draw out the huge potential of this exotic to a greater degree would inevitably get ahead of the competition.

Right now, Ves was pretty certain that no human rival had developed anything comparable to his blessed weapons!

Even if a couple of cults or fringe groups managed to create a comparable product, Ves seriously doubted that they had a handy design spirit like the Phase King at their disposal!

"Only I can utilize phasewater to this degree!"

Every state or organization that managed to develop powerful new phasewater applications were on track to becoming the leading players in the new frontier.

This was because they could effectively gain more value out of the same quantity of phasewater than others.

For example, if the Larkinson Clan and a rival pioneering group both gained 100 kilograms of phasewater each, Ves was confident that his own forces would be able to wipe the floor with the opposing forces!

This was because the Larkinson Clan could apply the phasewater they received in ways that made it seem as if they had received 150 or 200 kilograms of phasewater!

This hypothetical scenario highlighted one of the main forms of competition in the Red Ocean.

Only the stupid pioneers sought to defeat the competition by trying to obtain as much phasewater as possible.

The smarter and more farsighted pioneers invested more of their time, effort and resources into supporting R&D institutions.

By inventing new means to gain more power out of smaller quantities of phasewater, the most successful groups were bound to become the rulers of the new frontier. This was because they steadily became more efficient at utilizing their existing reserves!

Ves had a feeling that he and his clan had just set foot in this exclusive club.

What he had just invented was different from the powerful transphasic products developed by institutions such as Melmen Advanced Systems or Morton Tech.

Though the Larkinson Clan made extensive use of their minidrives and other products, none of the Larkinsons mastered the underlying technology.

It would take decades before the Larkinson Clan could come close enough to building up a research and development institution that possessed comparable capabilities.

That was far too long for his liking. Ves needed an advantage in the short term, and the emergence of his new design spirit channeling technique neatly solved an urgent problem!

"I need to discover more sympathetic materials. I can't pin all of my hopes on the Phase King."

The downside of blessed weapons was that the design spirit connected to them had to expend a considerable amount of spiritual energy to support their full usage.

"There is a limit to how many blessed weapons that the Phase King is able to support at any single time."

This meant that Ves had to be careful about increasing the quantity of weapons or objects blessed by the Phase King.

If Ves wanted to maximize the use of this new class of weapons, then he needed to diversify his products and involve other design spirits.

That was his biggest problem at the moment.

Ves was glad that it was easy to find a connection between the Phase King and a sympathetic material that he could easily obtain in the Red Ocean, but what about other ones?

He tried his best to figure out whether the materials he worked with in the past possessed similar ties to other design spirits, but his mind did not supply him with any answers.

Perhaps there might be a connection between Rorach's Bone and Gaia, but it was not as if he had samples of this regenerating material in his vault.

Aside from performing a long and exhausting manual search, there was no way for Ves to identify other sympathetic materials.

Ves had a feeling that it might not even be necessary for him to do this in the first place.

"If I can make my own sympathetic materials from scratch, then I don't need to bother with so much work."

Unfortunately, he had no clue how to make one himself, so he put this matter aside for the time being.

The most important task right now was to figure out how he could successfully apply his latest invention to his existing mech designs.

"It goes without saying that our existing and upcoming expert mechs could all use blessed weapons." He decided. "Even if the Phase King can't support the use of so many items at once, there are still ways our expert pilots can ration the design spirit's power."

The Phase King essentially offered a common pool of resources that every Larkinson expert pilot could draw upon to gain an extra boost in combat.

Those that had it difficult could borrow the Phase King's blessing to overcome a crisis while those that were doing well had no need to draw upon the resource pool.

As Ves continued to flesh out the usage and the rules surrounding his new blessed weapons, he became increasingly more enthusiastic about introducing this new tech to his clan!

His only regret was that his new innovation had nothing to do with the Eye Project. He still wanted to find a way to enhance the combat effectiveness of his upcoming commercial mech design project, but he would have to develop a completely different solution that wouldn't strain the limited resources of his design spirits.

He momentarily fell into thought. "Is there a way for me to apply a part of the principles of design spirit channeling in a way that is viable for mass production mechs?"

This was a difficult question for Ves to answer. He tried his best to come up with new ideas, but it appeared that he had exhausted his creativity for the time being.

He shrugged. "Oh well. One powerful new innovation is already enough."

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