The Mech Touch

If Ves hadn't been thinking about creating spirit fruits, he wouldn't have thought about achieving similar results through mechs.

The impact of this idea on his approach to mech design could not be overstated!

So far, his design philosophy was defined by two major developments.

The first development was the decision to pursue living mechs.

Ves believed that making mechs alive would help mech pilots perform better than if they piloted a lifeless equivalent.

The theory was simple to him. If a portion of the burden of piloting and fighting against the enemy could be transferred to the living mech, then the combination of the two working together could potentially result in much better performance!

Over the years, Ves had made a lot of progress in turning living mechs into a defining advantage of his products.

His second-order living mechs had transcended the basic level of X-Factor and possessed enough personality to influence their mech pilots in many beneficial ways.

Of course, the downside of living mechs was that they weren't all that impressive at the start. They needed a lot of time and commitment to turn into formidable living entities such as the Quint and the Shield of Samar!

Even so, they had already yielded the results that Ves had hoped for. The only difficulty was that there weren't many ways for him to improve this application. The fact that they always started out weak was a severe disadvantage that made it difficult for them to show their full value to their users.

The lack of upfront power had ultimately led Ves to the second major development of his design philosophy.

By borrowing the strengths of external design spirits, his mechs immediately gained a boost in power and utility that was difficult to replicate by others!

A basic glow was one that could increase people's sense of duty like that of the Desolate Soldier model.

A more advanced glow was one that could unnoticeably mess up an enemy mech pilot's perception like that of the Stingripper!

The more he worked on this application, the more he refined it. He had steadily expanded his collection of design spirits over the years. Each of them were willing collaborators who possessed an abundance of self-interest to retain their connections to his mech designs.

While there was a possibility that his design spirits might turn away from him and release their influence from his mech designs, the probability was rather low. Many of them were his own spiritual products and he was nothing less than their father in their perspective!

As for other design spirits with different origins such as Zeigra and the Titania, Ves could fall back on the plain old solution of bribing them with what they wanted.

Spiritual feedback was hard to come by and there was no easier solution than to serve as the guardian angels of his mech designs!

In this way, he had successfully opened another brand-new path in mech design! He could not think of any other mech designer that was crazy and brilliant enough to think of empowering mechs by contracting different intangible life forms!

"I really went overboard with this application." Ves depreciating admitted to himself.

He had become so enamored and reliant on design spirits and their glows that he had not spent enough time on improving his foundation.

Living mechs had started him on the path to becoming a successful mech designer.

Living mechs would also form the ultimate vessel that could help him ascend to the rank of Master and beyond.

Now, his latest epiphany had finally provided him with a direction for him to bring his living mechs to the next level!

"The key is growth. The key has always been growth."

Growth was one of the traits that distinguished his mechs from other ones. Ves could hardly think of any mech designed by a competitor that had the potential to grow more valuable over time.

Usually, mechs started out strong and slowly went downhill without any active effort.

While it was possible to modify and upgrade existing mechs to perform better than before, all of this cost time and effort that not everyone was willing to spend.

Living mechs partially solved this problem by being able to improve without performing any costly upgrades!

Not only were living mechs capable of holding their value longer by growing stronger in different ways, they could also become powerful heirloom mechs if their owners were willing to upgrade them so that they remained relevant!

The Shield of Samar was the quintessential example of how the latter could yield an immensely more valuable mech.

If Ves and Gloriana had chosen to design and fabricate the Shield of Samar as an expert mech from scratch, then the end result would never be as powerful even if the fabricated mech turned out to be a masterwork!

There were still gaps between masterwork mechs! The older ones such as the Quint and the Shield of Samar possessed numerous advantages over the newer ones such as the Everchanger and the Minerva.

The accumulation of years could not be substituted.

"It's amazing how far I've come since I've embraced the concept of growth through my living mechs."

His old Novice self would become absolutely gobsmacked if he came across the work of his current self!

Yet for all of his attempts to leverage the concept of growth to his advantage in his own mech designs, he had not seriously thought about extending it to the other half of the man-machine connection.

By including mech pilots among his targets for growth, the value of any mechs that successfully applied this expanded concept would skyrocket in value!

Ves recalled his discussions with Master Willix and the Polymath.

Both of them contextualized the use of technology and mechs in particular as tools that facilitated the growth and evolution of mech pilots and ultimately humanity as a whole.

Although it sounded like a fantastic idea, the problem was that mechs didn't provide that much nurturing towards their mech pilots!

Mechs only opened up new possibilities. It was up to the mech pilot themselves to grope their way forward. A countless amount of mech pilots dedicated their entire lives to training and fighting with their mechs, but how many of them were actually able to advance to expert pilot in the end?

Of the many expert pilots that only possessed a limited window of opportunity to achieve their second breakthrough, how many of them were forced to end their struggle for growth because their efforts alone weren't good enough to bring them any further?

What Ves had come up with had the potential to change all of these missed opportunities and wasted potential.

It was already possible for him to design living mechs that could grow stronger through active use.

Now, he figured out that it was possible for him to accomplish the same to the mech pilots!

"This is true synergy!"

The initial meaning of man-machine symbiosis was to pool their strengths and cover for their weaknesses.

This way, the combination of the two became stronger than if they remained separate.

Ves had dedicated a lot of time and effort into this meaning in the last few years. There was nothing wrong with that, but it was only now that he learned that he could bring the meaning of symbiosis to a deeper level.

"The way to do this is to apply the concept of growth to this symbiotic relationship!"

No longer would Ves solely focus on enabling his mechs to grow stronger.

The growth of a mech mainly empowered the mech pilot, but did not specifically stimulate the latter's growth in a significant fashion.

That was because Ves had been ignorant of the possibilities.

Now, Ves envisioned a way to design a living mech that utilized the man-machine connection to actively nurture the strengths of the mech pilot!

From growing the mech pilot's spiritual potential to imparting him with elevated talent for swordsmanship or marksmanship, there were many possible applications that Ves could develop that could uniquely make all of his customers stronger in an undeniable fashion!

"The best part about this is that the growth and strengthening of the mech pilot will ultimately feed back into the mech!"

The stronger the mech, the stronger the mech pilot!

The stronger the mech pilot, the stronger the mech!

This was already the case with ordinary mechs, but it was especially true when it came to his own products!

Ves imagined a future where every mech behaved similarly to a spirit fruit.

As long as a mech pilot diligently piloted the mech in question, he would constantly progress his own strength until he finally broke through to the rank of expert candidate!

Once the user of a mech became an expert candidate, he could provide a lot more spiritual feedback to the mech, thereby accelerating the machine's growth and development!

"When the mech grows stronger due to this interaction, its ability to nurture its mech pilot becomes even stronger! This in turn will help the mech grow stronger because his battle partner is able to provide more spiritual feedback!"

This was a virtuous cycle! One strengthened the other and back again in an endless cycle.

Of course, it was a lot harder to sustain this cycle in practice. The mech pilot was able to 'upgrade' himself continuously, but the mechs needed to be upgraded to expert mechs or ace mechs if there was a desire for them to accompany their old partners!

Still, the fact that such a virtuous cycle was even possible gave Ves a lot of encouragement in pursuing this powerful new direction!

"Growth mechs are not the only possible evolution of living mechs, but they are definitely the ones that fit my goals and style the most!"

Ves no longer felt that the description of 'Spiritual Man-Machine Symbiosis' described his design philosophy the best.

"If I embrace this path, then my design philosophy should actually be called 'Mutual Growth'!"

Mutual Growth!

The new description only consisted of two words, but they encompassed everything that Ves was trying to achieve with his mech designs.

The words pointed out the essence of his design philosophy in a way that the previous combination fell short.

Mutual was a word that stood for reciprocity and cooperation.

"I scratch your back. You scratch mine."

This was what Ves initially set out to do with his living mechs and his design spirits. The inclusion of multiple different life forms and enabling them to partner with each other to create different synergies had indeed led to many improvements.

However, mutual was not a word that properly incorporated the other aspect of his work.

The addition of the word 'Growth' solved this problem by comprehensively upgrading the description of his design philosophy.

It expressly described the potential for every partner of the relationship to grow stronger!

They not only did so by nurturing their own growth, but also accomplished this by nurturing each other's growth!

"Even the design spirit can join the party!"

This way, many more growth-inducing relationships became possible.

The mech pilot facilitated the growth of the mech and the design spirit.

The mech facilitated the growth of the mech pilot and the design spirit.

The design spirit facilitated the growth of the mech and the mech pilot.

Each of these relationships already existed in one form or another, but by neglecting the growth of the mech pilot, Ves had not fully drawn out their potential up until this point!

"All of this will change for the better!"

Ves' eyes burned hotter than ever as he already thought about experimenting with this new direction during the next round of mech design projects!

There was no better way to confirm whether the concept of growth was truly his key to advancing to Senior and ultimately Master!

"Every living mech must become a training mech."

This was his new short-term goal.

It was also an easy way for him to help others understand what he was aiming for. What Ketis had accomplished with her Monster Slayer model was a precursor of what he would be attempting with his own upcoming mech designs!

"I shall master my own growth!"