The Mech Touch

Around 35 hours after Ves contacted Master Goldstein, the latter's fleet finally arrived in the Ramage Repulsor System.

A small MTA frigate rapidly reached the brown dwarf star system first with the help of an advanced superdrive.

Once the MTA frigate quickly advanced towards the inner system and stopped at a modest distance away from the remnant alien battleship, the vessel quickly generated a portal with the help of another module.

The Spirit of Bentheim happened to be in the same neighborhood when this process took place.

This granted Ves a much closer look to the process of portal generation than usual.

Through his recently acquired phasewater affinity, he could feel that the tech was definitely dependent on the versatile substance to generate its characteristic portals!

Ves did not possess the ability to figure out the actual principles of mechanisms behind these incredibly useful portals.

The utility, speed and convenience of portal jump technology was unmatched.

Any decent scout vessel could call in a huge amount of reinforcements under almost any circumstances. This made it much harder to stop raids or assaults across a vast expanse of territory!

Any power that did not master portal jump technology would become so outmatched that its defeat should not be in question!

The fact that the native alien races managed to slow down the Big Two's invasion of the Red Ocean showed that the locals must have developed their own version of this tech.

In fact, it was highly likely that the native aliens invented this tech first!

It was rather odd that the puelmers and other alien races did not make use of portal jumps themselves, but there could be many possible explanations why this was the case.

The aliens may have invented the tech, but lacked the resources to develop practical and reasonably affordable products.

It might also be that the aliens were missing auxiliary tech and other knowledge that were needed to make the tech more stable and workable.

One of the acquired strengths of the human race was that it had grown so numerous that its scientific community was incredibly vast.

Humanity's accumulation of science and technology became so humongous that it could easily adapt and improve any alien tech it managed to reverse engineer!

From FTL drives to transphasic armor systems, much of humanity's tech was built by combining alien work with human ingenuity.

"Come to think of it, we humans are remarkably similar to puelmers." Ves idly remarked.

Both races developed the reputation for being obsessed with technology. They both had a tendency to steal the tech of other alien races but also focus a lot on original research.

However, there were still a lot of crucial differences between the two. The puelmers did not possess a wide range of emotions and possessed a lot less creativity on average.

These shortcomings most likely prevented the puelmers from exerting more technological dominance to the other inhabitants of the Red Ocean.

Ultimately, the puelmers failed to rise above the competition and could only begrudgingly live alongside other alien races in a permanent state of tension.

This was much different from the human race, which managed to improve its tech so quickly that it managed to conquer half of the Milky Way!

Of course, the Five Scrolls Compact undoubtedly played a part in this rapid progress as well, but that didn't change the fact that assimilating and improving different technologies was a winning formula.

"The MTA hoards a lot of technology." Ves reminded himself.

As a number of advanced warships passed through the portal, he thought about the mountains of alien and human tech that the MTA stored in its vast libraries.

Ves hungered to gain access to all of that knowledge!

He might not be obsessed with theories as the Polymath, but he deeply desired to gain access to new and advanced tech in order to push his mech designs to the next level!

By the time the largest and most formidable MTA warship emerged from the portal, Ves already created a small wish list in his mind. Perhaps he might have an opportunity to ask Master Goldstein for access to specific research in his upcoming conversation.

"Sir? The Antazella de Osiris, the flagship of the 1006th Dominion Fleet of the MTA, has just hailed us. The MTA is requesting us to back off from the alien battleship by at least 500 kilometers. You will also be brought to the research battlecarrier in three minutes in order to fulfill your appointment with Master Vayro Goldstein."

"Understood." Ves nodded. "Tell the mechers that I am ready and fully prepared."

He had moved out of his Unending Regalia and donned an understated but high-quality uniform instead.

It was not appropriate to meet with an important mecher while being armed for combat. Besides, there was no way the Antazella de Osiris would ever pose a hazard to his life while he visited the ship.

Ves spent the remaining time on studying the vessels that Master Goldstein brought over. Most of them consisted of frigates and destroyers that were already in the process of setting up special deployable space structures that would soon turn the area into a temporary science facility.

The Antazella de Osiris was a so-called research battlecarrier.

Just like the Paracelsus Optimus, the Antazella was a combination between a battleship, a fleet carrier and a research vessel.

The biggest differences between the two ships was that the Antazella was only 5.3 kilometers long and possessed a copper-colored hull that was embellished with red markings.

As Ves continued to pick out more details about the design of the Antazella de Osiris, he suddenly experienced the familiar sensations of teleportation acting on his body.

Surprisingly enough, the process became a lot slower and more cumbersome this time.

It was as if the Antazella's teleportation module needed to put a lot more effort into teleporting his body!

Ves knew exactly why this was the case. His recent physiological transformation had caused him to diverge so much from baseline humans that he was more like an alien who just happened to wear a human disguise.

Oh well.

After a few more torturous seconds, the teleporter finally plucked him out of the Spirit of Bentheim and deposited him inside the recently arrived MTA research battlecarrier.

"Welcome aboard the Antazella de Osiris, Mr. Larkinson." An MTA officer greeted him. "We apologize for the technical difficulties that you may have experienced. Our teleportation device has not accounted for the increased mass and exotic substances that you carry in your body. I suggest you notify us of any major alterations to your body in the future so that we can prevent accidents from occurring."

Ves politely nodded back. "I will be sure to take that into account."

Another mecher soon led him out of the teleportation chamber and led him through numerous corridors and an elevator before arriving before a mech workshop.

After undergoing a brief and completely unnecessary security check, Ves was finally allowed to head inside.

He briefly paused in order to admire the incomplete first-class multipurpose mech that was being worked upon.

Ves could immediately tell that it was not a new mech, but rather an existing one that showed signs of regular use for at least two years.

Interestingly enough, the first-class mech's rest form did not resemble that of a humanoid, but rather looked like a flower.

This was a classic shape of an advanced support mech. Numerous visible modules such as shield generators, energy transmitters, ECM modules and more all reinforced this impression.

Although the direct combat capabilities of this support-oriented mech should not be weak, its ability to act as a force multiplier ought to be extremely formidable!

"Mr. Larkinson." A voice called out. "Come closer. There is much to discuss."

As Ves resumed walking, he continued to study the support mech as he just couldn't resist the opportunity to figure out the concept behind its design.

As a Master Mech Designer, Vayro Goldstein clearly understood the machine's allure to people like Ves. The bald man smirked and waved his free arm at the exposed mech frame.

"Before we address the agenda for the day, what do you think of my work?"

"Is this mech a product of your design?" Ves looked mildly surprised. He thought that it was just a standard-issue MTA mech. "I do not dare to say that I understood how all of it works, but from what I can see… just a single one of these machines should be able to enhance the performance of an entire mech company to a significant degree. Even a 5 percent boost makes it worthwhile to replace another generic combat mech with this support machine. It would be even better if it can amplify the performance of surrounding mechs even more."

Master Goldstein put down the part he was holding and chuckled at Ves. "This mech is not as strong as you think. Its support capabilities are most definitely potent by your standards, but at our level… it can only add more icing on the cake. Are you still impressed, Mr. Larkinson?"

Ves furrowed his brows and looked up at the flower-shaped mech again. He could see why Goldstein spoke modestly. The various modules responsible for assisting other first-class multipurpose mech did not appear to be all that strong.

That didn't mean he was convinced that it was weak, though.

No MTA mech was weak, especially when they were designed by an MTA Master. People like Master Goldstein had more pride than most of their peers due to having access to the best tech and resources.

Ves tried to peer beyond the surface and studied the spiritual foundation of the machine.

Though the spiritual foundation of the flower mech was not alive, it was remarkably uniform and coherent, which was a clear sign that it was a solo project.

Without any other mech designers contaminating its design, the support mech encapsulated Master Goldstein's specialty to the strongest and purest degree.

It became very clear what the support mech was designed to do now that Ves had taken a look at the heart of the machine.

"This first-class multipurpose mech is designed to offer support at extreme distances on the battlefield." Ves ultimately answered. "It takes existing support functions and amplifies their effective ranges so that they can provide beleaguered mechs with an emergency energy shield or top off the energy reserves of another machine. These are all standard functions to the MTA, but when they can take effect from one side to another side of the battlefield, the utility and value of this machine has multiplied by at least an order of magnitude!"

This was a fantastic rescue mech! It did not need to activate its functions all of the time. It was better to keep it in reserve and only put it into action when important friendly mechs were about to fall.

It could also assist in the protection and safe retrieval of ejected cockpits.

Ves was feeling incredibly inspired by now. Though he likely wasn't able to design a reasonable imitation of this support mech, he might be able to cook up a mech design that supported friendly units in his own unique ways!

"My design philosophy is centered around providing wide area support." Master Goldstein clarified. "I am most known for designing support mechs that can assist hundreds if not thousands of mechs at a time. This particular design is a deviation from my typical work, but that makes it more worthwhile to explore. As mech designers, we should never stop experimenting and innovating. I consider this work to be a partial failure, but that does not mean I regret working on it. I have verified many theories and determined a new research direction that should provide me with significant gains."

The process sounded highly familiar to Ves as he worked in a similar fashion. He explored so many ideas that it was hard to justify his scatterbrained approach, but that was just who he was. He would not be the mech designer he was today if he did not give in to his curiosity.

"That is interesting, Master, but aren't we supposed to talk about compensation and awards?"

Goldstein raised his eyebrow. "Impatient, are you? Let us conclude this matter. I have already calculated your contributions during your journey to this mech workshop. My judgment will need to be approved by other authorities, but once they concur with my assessment, our Association will award your Golden Skull Alliance with a total of 1,343,400,312 MTA merits."

"...Pardon me. I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat the sum again?"

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