The Mech Touch

Chapter 4126 A New Bridge

To Ves, what unfolded before his eyes was unprecedented.

It was not strange for him to see a mech exceed the masterwork threshold these days.

However, this time was special.

Ves and the rest of his fellow Larkinsons werenʼt responsible for this feat this time. Though they had put more effort into this design than many of their other mechs, they never considered it to be theirs alone.

Despite turning into a living mech that contained all of the strongest elements of their respective design philosophies, the Mars did not belong to the Larkinson Clan.

It was designed to become the new flagship mech of the Cross Clan.

Now that Ves and everyone else present in the workshop of the Primary Cross Lab could see the expert mech in its final and complete form, they truly felt it had become a fantastic representative of a clan that was on the rise.

The mech exuded power and might beyond any expert mech that Ves had seen in person. Not even the Gatecrasher, which Ves previously considered as the most impressive high-tier expert mech that he had witnessed in action, could compare against an extravagant machine that could rightfully be called a half-step ace mech!

As the lengthy and extensive masterwork transformation continued to change and alter the frame of the Mars for the better, Ves and the others became completely enthralled by the improvements that emerged.

New insights and realizations spawned in their minds that had never graced them before.

Part of this was because the Mars was such a complex, powerful and high-end expert mech. Not even the C-Man with its TESMAS could come close to the technological sophistication of the expert hybrid mech.

The collision and interplay with all kinds of brand-new products of high technology such as the Abasis Armor, the Pulsvar V-1, the ARCEUS System and so on generated an enormous amount of technical realizations that the mech designers simply couldnʼt catch them all with their limited processing capacity.

They could only record the transformations with their implants and the workshopʼs excellent sensors and repeatedly review the footage at a later date to grasp the insights that eluded during this time.

Even then, they were destined not to comprehend everything that took place within the Mars as much of the advanced systems were outside of their areas of expertise.

For example, while Ves was able to understand the intricacies concerning the ARCEUS System fairly well considering that he had worked on it for more than a year straight, he understood almost nothing about what was going on with the highly-prized Abasis Armor!

It was okay, though. Ves did not have any desire to bite more than he could chew. The huge amount of insights he derived from the ARCEUS System already enhanced his overall understanding of energy weapon systems by a large margin!

However, that wasnʼt the most interesting part about the transformation of the Mars.

What truly captured his imagination was how Professor Benedictʼs extraordinary efforts affected the spiritual design of the Mars.

While Ves did not fully understand what the Senior had done with the skull of an expert pilot, it appeared that integrating it into the power reactor of the expert mech produced an extraordinary series of reactions that produced a remarkable new addition to the machine.

Through his spiritual senses, he could see that the skull had become much more than just a hidden ornament. Through the special design elements that Professor Benedict had spontaneously added to the mech design in an act of inspiration, the skull had actually turned into a bridge between the material and the imaginary realm!

Ves had to double-check and triple-check his observations in order to verify what he was seeing.

”An actual bridge!”

The implications and the uses of such a bridge were enormous. He couldnʼt even begin to describe the brilliance of this mechanism and what kind of effects it could produce!

Ves could fully believe that this was an innovation that was worthy for a Senior Mech Designer to advance to Master Mech Designer.

He could hardly imagine a case where Professor Benedictʼs dream would be denied because this invention was insufficient!

As Ves observed the effects of the skull even further, he could see that it not only served as a bridge between different realms, but also acted as an energy converter of sorts.

The object drew loose spiritual energy from the imaginary realm and then proceeded to convert it into another, more mysterious form of energy that subsequently spread throughout the power reactor and the components that corresponded to the Magma Vein System.

Ves wasnʼt able to determine the exact effects of this interaction, but he could see that it was constantly taking place no matter whether the mech was dormant or active.

Though he wasnʼt able to make any precise judgments on these new phenomena due to how new and unprecedented they were, he could make a guess or two. He highly suspected that the Mars had become even more inexhaustible than before.

It would take a very long time before the Mars bottomed-out its energy reserves!

This had incredibly scary implications. As a powerful hybrid mech, the Mars was by nature a war machine whose firepower and impact on the battlefield scaled with the amount of energy it had at its disposal.

An expert hybrid mech that only possessed a fourth of the energy reserves of another machine would find itself much more limited in how much it could impact an ongoing battle.

Therefore, if Professor Benedictʼs latest innovation could directly or indirectly increase the total amount of energy that the Mars could convert into useful work by just 10 or 15 percent, the implication was that the mech would effectively perform 10 percent better in many different situations!

Against more powerful enemies, the Mars could engage its weapons and employ its defensive and mobility systems at higher power levels without worrying about running out in mid-battle.

Against weaker opponents, the Mars could liberally utilize its ARCEUS System to annihilate even greater swarms of cannon fodder.

No matter what, with more energy at its disposal, Patriarch Reginaldʼs new expert mech would definitely become an even scarier presence on the battlefield!

”This isnʼt even the only implication of the new addition.”

What interested Ves even more was how the existence of the bridge actually fed into the rest of the spiritual design of the Mars.

A new and maybe unintentional form of synergy had emerged inside the expert mech.

Part of the spiritual energy that the Mars drew from the imaginary realm did not convert into other forms of energy.

Instead, they channeled directly into the more spiritual elements of the Mars and everything else that was attached to it. This included facets of Glorianaʼs god body and Vesʼ structured living spiritual foundation!

To put it into more simple terms, Professor Benedictʼs invention directly boosted the specialties imparted by Ves and Gloriana!

Though Ves was concerned how this unanticipated change affected his own elaborate design arrangements of the Mars, he was overall quite happy with this addition.

More energy translated into greater power and development! The living aspects of the Mars would become even stronger than he initially intended, which meant that the expert mech would definitely be able to display even more extraordinary abilities in battle!

Of course, Ves still needed to verify the exact effects during the crucial testing sessions that would commence after the completion of this pivotal mech.

Though the mech designers had made extensive calculations and predictions on the performance of the Mars, its masterwork transformation as well as Professor Benedictʼs drastic changes largely turned all of that data obsolete.

Ves and the others had to rebuild all of their datasets from the ground up! There was no way that they could predict how the Mars actually behaved once it was finally being put to use. The only certainty that they possessed was that the expert mech was definitely a lot more powerful than before!

Soon, the masterwork transformation had run its course. The Mars seemed to settle into its new and improved state, though it was still thrumming and glowing with activity.

Part of it was because of the skull that was constantly injecting the mech with energy.

Another part of it was because Patriarch Reginald had never ceased to resonate with his new expert mech!

Despite how cumbersome it must be to resonate with an expert mech outside of a man-machine connection, Patriarch Reginald was too impressed and enthused by his new high-end machine to stop. He had already grown addicted to the Mars!

All of this had too many implications for Ves to keep track of. He particularly took note of how the expert pilot and expert mech already started to familiarize with each other in advance.

Ves turned his gaze to Professor Benedict.

The Senior had risen to his feet by now. The former Skull Architect definitely gained the most from this fabrication run. The older man was so preoccupied by all of the revelations he had obtained from his latest work of brilliance that his mind had remained in flux even though Vulcanʼs influence had long faded away.

Ves could not precisely tell what was going on with Professor Benedict. He cautiously stepped forward and reached the manʼs side.

”Are you…”

”I have yet to realize my design philosophy.” Benedict whispered back as most of his concentration remained preoccupied with all of the insights that captivated his imagination. ”I have come closer, though. I am closer to breaking past the bottleneck than I have ever been in the last fifty years of my life.”

”That…”

”Donʼt look disappointed. This is a fantastic step forward for me. The first attempt is always the most difficult for mech designers such as us. Today, I have managed to implement a reality-defying innovation. If you ask me to apply the same solution to another mech or expert mech, I will be unable to oblige your request because I cannot replicate it at the moment.”

”Oh.”

Ves immediately grew a little disappointed. It would have been nice if Professor Benedict could help the Larkinsons upgrade their existing roster expert mechs. Who wouldnʼt want to add an extra power-up to their expert mechs?

Of course, Ves had yet to think about where he could obtain the necessary skulls to serve as bridges between the two realms.

”As I have said, I have already completed the first step of my breakthrough process.” Professor Benedict clarified to the younger mech designer. ”What I need to do in the next couple of years is to study my new innovation and deconstruct it so I can thoroughly understand how it works. Once I have done that, I can devise a systematic method that can be applied in a more universal manner, not just by myself, but also by other mech designers such as you and your wife. As long as I have accomplished these feats, I believe that my advancement to the rank of Master will not take long to come into fruition!”

”Con..congratulations, professor!”

If Professor Benedict could truly complete this profound and important leap, the Cross Clan and the Golden Skull Alliance would definitely rise to a greater level of power, wealth, prominence and importance!

More than that, Ves would gain easy access to a genuine Master Mech Designer who he maintained a close and intimate relationship with. The bond between the two went beyond mutual interests. Years of shared struggles and cooperation had turned them into comrades-in-arms as well as personal friends!

The practical value of such a bond could not be overstated. While Ves had already acquainted himself with numerous impressive mech designers such as Master Willix and Master Dervidian, neither of the two were on his side. His importance to them were purely based on interests and nothing more, which made them inherently unreliable in situations where Ves most needed their assistance.

Rather than relying for help from these aloof MTA Master who were concerned with much more different matters, Ves would rather lean on a Master Mech Designer who would not hesitate to bail him out if he had fallen into trouble!