The Mech Touch

Chapter 6528 Wild Modularity

Talking became annoying when Ves entered his Deep Research State, but there was nothing wrong when he was left to work by himself.

The development of the Amaranto Mark III's Ultimate Module progressed quickly. Ves was able to complete the development of the Two-Step Execution Crystal considerably faster than expected due to the advantages of his special mental state.

As Ves began to apply his newly gained insights into archetech to handle relatively simple assignments related to the tech, the advantages of his Deep Research State became a little less pronounced.

Perhaps it was because he did not master enough archetech to work fluently with it yet, or maybe it was because he was not passionate about this field.

Whatever the case, Gloriana began to request that Ves pull himself out of his abnormal mental state because his strange condition was beginning to produce more and more problems for himself and the clan.

Even if other people had expressed sympathy and understanding of Ves' sudden drop in empathy, humanity and charisma, it was still disturbing and upsetting to interact with a man who clearly showed no interest in socializing with others.

This incident revealed that. Ves had come to rely a lot on building an expanding network of friends, acquaintances and business partners to form his own empire. Fortunately, the immense reputation and his historic accomplishments propped Ves up when his current words and behavior did not always befit a man of his stature. Ves knew that he should not disregard the growing voices of criticism. There was a time and place where increasing his productivity and completing his mech design projects sooner may turn out to be a matter of life and death.

He did not know whether he should classify the Amaranto Mark III with the same degree of severity, but he decided that it would be enough after completing this mech design project.

He at least wanted to maintain this state when upgrading the expert mech alongside his fellow collaborators to see whether anything would happen.

Once that was over, he would immediately return to his normal state of mind and work on the remainder of his projects the old-fashioned way.

Many people around Ves grew more and more eager to see Ves return to his original self.

No matter whether Ves was providing valuable observation data to the Red Collective or not, almost everyone had lost their patience with the problems that he had inadvertently caused!

Meanwhile, the people around him grew more and more concerned about the possibility of a final push by the native aliens.

Weeks had passed. Red humanity had plenty of time to gather proof that the native aliens were about to unleash a final attack, yet the answers from all of the scouting parties were universal.

"We have found no conclusive proof that the native aliens are amassing their warships and other combat assets. All of their staging points are operating at normal capacity. Our spies and the spies of other organizations have attempted to find any logistical trails that can lead to the hiding places of the possible reinforcements, but we have yet to acquire any. A passerby may take a look at this situation and think that we are being overly paranoid to the point of spotting ghosts where there are none."

Eliza Mo Ragadan calmly delivered her report on this subject, knowing that Ves was incredibly concerned about any developments related to a final push.

Not even his Deep Research State could make him apathetic towards the potential extinction of red humanity.

"How... can this be? I was sure that... the native aliens were preparing to finish the job. There should have been more indications in the past, right?"

"Yes, but our adversaries are clever and cunning, sir." His chief of staff from the Red Collective explained. "The native aliens have tightened their procedures and became more conscious of the information they may convey to enemy observers. The intelligence we have gathered behind enemy lines have become considerably less reliable as a result."

That sounded tricky. Ves had no doubt that the Cosmopolitan Movement was behind this effective response. The human traitors were still furious about their inability to stop the rollout of kinship networks across every state and organization!

"So do... you still believe that a final push... is coming?"

Eliza narrowed her eyes. "We hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. We cannot afford to get caught off-guard. We would rather assume that the native aliens have found a way to gather reinforcements completely beyond our detection capabilities than to believe that our enemies are failing to see their offensive through. This is why we are expediting many bureaucratic procedures and approving many more projects than before. Similar activity is taking place in other states and organizations."

This would be an excellent time for Ves to propose a radical mech design... if he was interested in the subject.

Ves was still fixated on completing the Amaranto Mark III, so it was hard for him to shift a lot of focus to another exciting new mech design.

Alas, he could only stick to his original plan as he was not in a condition to do anything extraneous.

"I guess we can't do... anything else without any solid clues." Ves thought in resignation. "Are there... any other noteworthy developments taking place at... this time?"

There is, sir. The Artifact Warship Department that you have originally proposed to serve as a joint venture between the Red Collective and the Red Fleet has recently taken shape. It is still years away from developing a functional warship that is able to harness the power of E energy radiation in a qualitatively superior manner, but the fleeters are highly optimistic about this initiative."

"Hm. Good. We need... better warships. The Red Fleet needs to... keep up with the times, and they can't do so by squandering their time and resources... into their

Starfighter Corps."

Surprisingly enough, the Starfighter Corps had not collapsed as Ves anticipated.

In the buffer period where most Carmine mech pilots still needed to undergo intensive training in order to pilot their Yellow Jackets in battle, starfighters were needed to make up the numbers and increase red humanity's ability to resist repeated invasions.

Starfighter pilots may have lost their allure, but their duty to their race and civilization remained strong

These people willingly piloted inferior strike craft out of love and duty to red humanity!

Naturally, the Starfighter Corps no longer received as much ridicule as before. Its future may be bleak, but the heroism of the starfighter pilots who remained was

commendable.

Ves started to lose interest in the briefing. Eliza Mo Ragadan continued to report on half-a-dozen other developments, but it seems the information passed through one ear and went out of the other ear.

He wanted to get back to the Amaranto Mark III Project. Ever since he first entered his Deep Research State, he had instinctively designated its completion as his most

important objective.

This properly focused his attention in the right direction, but also made it harder for him to care about other stuff.

His work on the Rule Breaker Project would have suffered badly if this was the case!

It was not a good idea for Ves to anger his mother as well as the other scary True Gods of the Oblivion Gate Consortium!

Fortunately, Ves had already discovered that his incarnations could largely escape Ves' mental distortions.

Veronica at the very least suffered little problems when she worked on the Rule

Breaker Project by herself.

In fact, she could also choose to enter a Deep Research State of her own if she wanted,

as she was technically a phase lord as well!

The Cyborg Cat wisely declined to do so because of the need to maintain her wits. She

also needed to remain sociable enough to collaborate with Master Moira Willix.

It felt so good to be able to work alongside Master Willix on a collaborative mech

design.

This time, they worked as equals, which was an entirely new experience for the both of them. It was refreshing as the Rule Breaker Project was not a technically demanding project. It just demanded a lot of variations in order to account for regional resource

availability.

What was especially nice about working alongside a rational mech designer at the Master level was that Moira Willix was able to replicate a large selection of design philosophies with great proficiency!

There was no need to bring in other contributing mech designers to this taboo mech

design project.

Willix could easily replicate four different design philosophies and apply them to the mech design!

"Leaving aside the rich E-technology aspect, modularity is central to the Rule Breaker

Project. This is the universal base that we must develop first in order to give birth to all other possibilities. The most relevant design philosophy that I can imitate and apply to this mech design is Wild Modularity. It is a rather extreme approach to modular mech platforms by allowing a machine to slot in parts and wield equipment that were originally designed by other mechs."

"Wait, what?" The Cyborg Cat reacted with astonishment. "Is that actually possible?"

"There is an assimilation period that can last for months, faster for stronger mech pilots. Once the assimilation period has run its course, the 'wild' parts that have been grafted onto the modular mech have become metaphysically integrated. This advantage should massively increase the popularity of the Rule Breaker Project, as Carmine mech pilots can acquire the favorite parts and systems from their favorite

mechs, convert them into modular equipment and slot them into their Carmine

mechs." "That sounds amazing! Let's include Wild Modularity into the Rule Breaker Project. right away! What other cool design philosophies can you imitate?!"

While Veronica made good progress on the Rule Breaker Project with the help of an incredibly useful rational Master Mech Designer, work on the Amaranto Mark III Project had reached the final phases before the design team was ready to begin the exhaustive upgrade process.

The design became functionally complete after one-and-a-half months of exemplaryn/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

diligent work. It had become feature complete and only needed to be refined and optimized over multiple rounds in order to reach its final form.

Venerable Davia Stark frequently moved to the practice range and changed into a

strong suit of combat armor on order to test different scale models of the Instrument

of Vengeance.

Yes, Venerable Stark had already been recalled from the border regions so that she could do what she could to help the mech designers complete their assignments. "I should have stayed with the expeditionary fleet. There are too many aliens that need slaying" The older female expert pilot grumbled under her breath on occasion. Despite her absence from the battlefield, she obediently cooperated with the mech designers to cooperate in tests and help with gathering useful empirical data. Although she was unable to properly test the performance of the Ultimate Module as it would only properly work on the real Instrument of Vengeance, she still looked forward to taking advantage of its amazing properties.

Venerable Davia Stark had big plans for the Two-Step Execution Crystal! She intended to nurture it carefully so that it would quickly grow and mature into a

much more powerful and useful form of targeting correction and aim assistance system.

"When will the upgrade process begin?" Davia asked as her body was shaking with

anticipation.

"Less than a week." Gloriana replied. "We have imported all of the necessary materials and calibrated all of our advanced production machines. There are still aspects of the Amaranto Mark III design that I feel are rushed, so I insist we use the remaining days to work out the more glaring imperfections and ensure that the Amaranto Mark III will appear stellar when she has unveiled her presence on the battlefield."

She already had confidence that the Amaranto Mark III would exceed the Dark Zephyr

Mark III on almost every level.

From the increased complexity of archetech to the multiple sources of amplification of the firepower of the Instrument of Vengeance, the expert marksman mech was slated to become the ultimate ranged executioner of the Larkinson Clan!