The Mech Touch

"Hah!" Venerable Vincent Ricklin patted his hand on Ves' shoulder. "Leave the fighting to us, buddy! I don't know where you get these weird ideas, but you don't need to worry about yourself or us. I can do anything as long as you make the best possible mechs! My C-Man has worked out really well for me, but if I want to keep improving in the future, I know that I will have to depend on you. Making better mechs is all we ask from you, Ves."

None of the Larkinson mech pilots were weak. The current roster of expert pilots were especially promising. None of them were too old and many of them experienced rapid growth due to being paired with masterwork expert mechs.

Though Ves did not take Vincent seriously most of the time, the man's response was quite good this time.

If Ves was confident in his troops and his ability to supply them with powerful mechs, then why should he resort to anything else?

Whether it was Mech Pilot Cultivation or Personal Piloting Cultivation, both choices implied that Ves did not have any confidence in the soldiers that he had gathered around him and his clan.

Rather than getting sidetracked, it might be better for him to stick to his current strategy and seek to empower his mech army with better and more fantastic creations.

Expanding his ability to design and build better mechs and other pieces of tech could strengthen his troops and his defenses a lot more than relying on other means.

He just had to possess enough confidence in himself and his army.

When Ves approached Commander Casella, she voiced a similar opinion.

"Our clan is made up of many different people. Compared to other organizations, the proportion of members who are combat personnel is on the higher end." She explained. "We have many mech pilots and support personnel who are capable professionals. I have little doubt that even the humblest mech pilot among us is willing and able to fight to the utmost if the need arises."

"So you're saying that I should count on all of you guys to do your jobs?"

"That is part of what I want to convey. Please do not doubt the army that you have created. We have grown quickly since you created us and we are continuing to grow stronger with each passing year. Even I cannot imagine the opponents we will be able to fight against in a century. I think you will never have to worry about us falling short. We don't even need your mechs if it comes down to it. We have reached a point in our growth where we can defeat plenty of enemies even if we rely entirely on commercial mech models and mechs developed by external mech designers on commission."

She was right. In the past, Ves and his growing organization frequently encountered enemies that brought a superior force into the field.

The troops under his command had to rely on numerous unconventional solutions that their enemies couldn't foresee such as battle formations and design spirits in order to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Though the battles that the Larkinson Clan fought in the past were certainly thrilling as a result, this was no way to survive in the long term!

This was why Ves and his clan invested a huge amount of funding and resources into strengthening the fundamentals of the Larkinson Army.

Powerful mechs with impressive specs paired with well-trained battle-hardened mech pilots ought to be enough to defeat or deter most enemies!

As Ves quizzed a few more expert pilots, they all supplied him with similar answers. They believed in their strength and the strength of their fellow pilots. They did not ask for Ves to help them in any other fashion other than supplying them with stronger mechs. They could take care of the rest by relying on their own power.

Ves began to receive different answers when he turned to the mech designers of his clan. They were much more interested in his struggle to decide what area to focus on improving the most.

"We are all humans, sir." Merrill O'Brian told him. "We are a classical tool-using race that relies foremost on our understanding and mastery of technology to gain strength and defeat our opponents. While there are alternate means of obtaining power, none of them are as suitable or as reliable as technology. As long as our technological superiority is vastly greater than that of our foes, we will always be able to win our battles."

Sara Voiken also voiced her support of focusing on technology.

"Phasewater technology is the future of mech design. Humanity is constantly coming out with new and better ways to build mechs. If we want to become the strongest clan in human space, then it is essential for us to master the best technology. I'm not just talking about the innovations that we create in-house, but also the tech that other people have developed. There are many brilliant people alive today, and the amount of new and amazing tech they come up with is unimaginable. The biggest groups such as the Big Two and the first-rate superstates are primarily strong because of how extensively they are able to access and make use of so much tech."

"I agree with Merrill and Sara." Juliet Stameros said. "We are all mech designers who hope to make mech better through our own research. However, no matter how much effort we put into developing new solutions, we can only do so much. A collective is always more powerful than any state or organization. One of the biggest reasons why the human race originally got ahead was because we shared all of our technological gains with each other. Inventions such as FTL drives and energy shields did not remain exclusive to a single faction of humanity, but became available to everyone. This process is continuing to take place, so if we do not want to fall behind, we need to maximize our ability to process the latest developments in the tech industry."

Several of the Journeyman that Ves had gathered adopted ugly looks.

"I have already spent years on trying to master the fundamentals of phasewater technology, but I think it will take longer than 10 years before I can develop my first decent transphasic armor system." Sara wearily sighed.

"Phasewater technology is a relatively new field. Rapid change and progress is taking place every day." Juliet mentioned. "The original package of textbooks and articles that we have obtained from the MTA is already outdated. By the time we have mastered the basics, I expect we will have to devour another pile of difficult textbooks in order to catch up with the progress that phasewater researchers have attained so far, but once we have devoured those books, we will probably have to devour another batch of study material in order to close the gap again…"

In short, this was a never-ending cycle. While it sounded incredibly tiring to keep devoting lots of time to try and fail to catch up with all of the exciting developments in this exotic new field, they had no choice in the matter.

As Sara Voiken had just said, phasewater technology was the future of mech design as well as many other sectors. Those that did not master its fundamentals at all were destined to become marginalized in the future.

However, the sheer difficulty of phasewater technology meant that there were large gaps in understanding and capabilities between different mech designers.

Those that excelled at book learning would undoubtedly be able to get a headstart in designing powerful transphasic mechs. Ves predicted that mech designers who were much better at absorbing new and difficult scientific theories would come to dominate the mech market within the next generation!

This was bad news to Ves and the Larkinson Clan! Every mech designer worth mentioning was still young and only absorbed so much knowledge up to this point in their lives.

Seniors and Masters were much stronger in this aspect due to their higher ages and their more formidable intellectual capabilities.

If the Larkinson Clan was led by a Master, then Ves wouldn't be worried.

Unfortunately, the Design Department only had Journeymen!

While this had not been a major problem up until now, once transphasic mechs became more ubiquitous, the LMC would definitely fall behind.

If Ves wanted to ensure that his mechs would never drop in popularity because he and his fellow Larkinson mech designers failed to harness the latest and most cutting-edge technologies, then choosing the Technological Supremacy upgrade track would be a great choice!

As long as he set aside his concerns about attracting too much attention from the Polymath, Ves admitted that this was indeed a fantastic choice for a mech designer.

Ves had always been proud of his ability to empower mechs beyond their technical specs and design. However, that did not mean that it was the right choice to depend entirely on his specialty to make his mechs strong.

If he was able to excel in both spiritual and technical design, then his mechs would definitely become a lot more impressive and rounded than before!

In a more ideal situation, Ves would be able to rely on his wife and his fellow mech designers to compensate for this weakness.

However, with so much new and complicated tech coming out every day, there was simply no way for any of them to fully catch up with all of the crazy and powerful new technologies that pushed mechs even further.

If Ves was able to leverage the System to catch up faster than anyone else, he would be able to make certain that the performance of his mechs would always remain ahead of mechs designed by other capable people!

He finally received a different opinion when he approached Ketis for advice.

"Technology is great, but technology isn't everything, Ves." She told him as she paused her work on one of her powerful swordsman mech designs. "It's the user that is important as well. There are lots of great tech out there, but the people who must harness it need to be strong as well in order to make proper use of what they have available. When we put our focus on assisting people, I believe that they can become unimaginably strong!"

"So tech is not as important in your opinion?" Ves curiously asked.

Ketis firmly nodded. "Expert pilots such as Venerable Dise or swordmasters such as myself are proof of that! Both of us are able to take on far stronger opponents despite the fact that we are humans who are wielding sharp metal objects. Any normal mech pilot or soldier would never be able to come close to matching our battle prowess. This is despite the fact that all of the equipment stays the same!"

She made for a powerful argument, but there was one big flaw to her premise.

"Not everyone is capable of becoming as strong as you and Venerable Dise." He said. "Even if it becomes a lot easier for soldiers to break through in the future, there will still be a division between weak and strong."

"Limits don't exist, Ves. The act of breaking through from one rank to the next is proof that every barrier can be overcome no matter how strong they are. If a soldier isn't strong enough, then we need to put more effort into training! Have you seen how good the new generation of Swordmaiden mech pilots have become? They can beat their peers from every other mech legion in a melee battle! While the mech models they use are all over the place, their specs are not that different. It is the pilots that make up the difference."