The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1096

As much as Ves enjoyed reconnecting with old friends, he still had a job to do. The single most important responsibility of a mech designer was to design mechs, and the LMC would never be able to realize all of its ambitions by remaining stuck at offering only two mech models for sale.

"It’s high time for the Aurora Titan to join the LMC’s lineup."

He made sure the LMC still committed to implement Phase 2. He also arranged a huge pile of homework for Ketis for her enhanced learning ability to sink its teeth into. Finally, he checked with Melkor and gave him a heads up about the bounty on his head.

Predictably, his cousin frowned when he heard the news. "We haven’t heard an inkling of this threat."

"You should be more on top of the local underground scene, Melkor." Ves lightly admonished him. "While it’s important to train the new members of the Avatars and arrange missions for them, make sure you aren’t losing sight of your primary task, which is to protect my life."

"You’re right. It’s just that I’m not that into the underground scene."

"Don’t worry. You should get in touch with Dietrich or the Whalers and tell them to keep an eye on any news about me or the LMC. Raella can also help since she’s more immersed in the Bentheim scene."

Melkor scowled a bit. "Raella? She’s so busy flaunting her status as a Blood Claw champion to care about the family."

"What’s this all about, Melkor? Are you still upset about her decision to ditch us? As far as I’m concerned, that’s all over in the past."

"It’s just so selfish of her, you know. The family invested so much attention in her training, but her obsession for arena duels has led her astray. Even if she renounced her ties to the family, she’s still dragging the name of the Larkinsons through the mud each time she fights on behalf of the Blood Claws."

Ves crossed his arms. "She was obviously not content to remain with us. There’s no point in trying to retain her if she’s so hellbent on following her own path instead of the one the family laid out for her. There are plenty more Larkinsons who are following the straight and narrow path."

They moved on to discuss other matters related to the Avatars of Myth. Right now, Melkor already lined some small contracts for his men to gain some field experience. These short-duration missions only required him to send out a single squad at a time, which suited everyone just fine.

After bidding goodbye to Melkor, he entered his underground lab and prepared to undergo the next design phase. Now that he had a good idea on what other people thought about his draft design, he finally gained enough confidence to start with converting the draft into an actual design.

"Everyone raised some good points, but it’s hard to address them without giving anything up." Ves shook his head.

This was the nature of any design project. Ves made a lot of tradeoffs that entailed sacrificing mobility for his current design project. This was a very decision for him to make because mobility almost always played a key role in the battle performance of a mech.

"I’ve made my choices. Even with my Aurora Titan’s lack of mobility, I can still make up for it in other ways!"

Ves centered his mind in order to enter his best state. As a mech designer, he constantly thought about designing mechs, so he didn’t need to be so serious about it. The only reason why he still did it was because he wanted to excite Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment that had been resting in his mind for a while.

"Wake up. It’s time to design the mech that you’ll inhabit."

The fragment released a pulse, its scorching energy burning his mindspace a bit. Ves winced as he bore the pain. Every single action the fragment took burdened his mind in some way. Even if he had gotten used to its weighty presence, the fragment was still too potent compared to the strength of his mind!

"If Qilanxo is equivalent to an ace pilot, then ace pilots deserve to be regarded as half gods!"

Although the preparation brought him some discomfort, the fragment roused itself awake. Ves found it interesting that the fragment displayed a pretty complete personality. It could make its own decisions and even made proactive moves when it suited its purposes. It was just as if Qilanxo was directly present!

"I’m a very long distance away from replicating such a feat." Ves muttered.

Ever since he started toying with spiritual fragments, he wondered what would happen if he carved out a chunk of his own Spirituality.

Would Ves be able to imbue it with a part of his personality and enable it to act autonomously?

Would Ves be able to maintain an active connection with it and be able to act from the fragment even if he left it behind in another star system?

All of these questions sounded interesting, but Ves was way too leery to actually go through with this experiment. At the time, he didn’t have a full picture on the damage this move could do to his own mind and spirit. The last thing he wanted to do was to spiritually mutilate himself in the name of exploring his possibilities!

He snorted. "That’s what test subjects are for. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on a couple of dwarves from Aeon Corona VII."

He spent quite a bit of time trying to find new applications of spirituality. Seeing Qilanxo’s spiritual fragment at work in transforming a normal mech pilot into an expert pilot really opened his eyes on the nature of spiritual energy. All of his thoughts lately came from trying to play with the attributes of spiritual energy.

Yet the experiments he had in mind were... ethically dubious. It would be better to perform them on individuals no one cared about.

"Well, enough about this, let’s get to work."