The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1573

Chapter 1573 Masterwork Attempt

"The fabrication process of a perfect vessel is a ritual." Gloriana told Ves in a solemn voice. "The mech has to be produced successfully at the very first attempt."

"I don't think the worst case scenario will happen." Ves smiled at her. "Regardless of how much we customized it, the Resentful Soldier is still a simple mech design. With our level of skill, it's impossible for us to fail our first attempt."

The two had moved over to the workshop hall where they awaited the delivery of the raw materials required to fabricate their mech. Ves had already spent some time familiarizing himself with Gloriana's high-quality production equipment.

The 3D Printer, assembly system and so on surpassed anything the LMC possessed. With such high-quality equipment, the chance of fabricating a masterwork mech was a little bit better than normal, which was exactly what Gloriana wanted.

"With how much effort we put into this mech, we have to aim for masterwork!" Gloriana declared with a determined expression. She raised her dainty fist at Ves. "You better make sure to put in your full effort. Show me the strength that enabled you to fabricate your first masterwork!"

Her intense demand forced Ves to take this job a lot more seriously than he initially planned.

In truth, Ves did not regard his chances highly. Their collaborating in this project had not been very smooth. They barely achieved some synergy and there was still a lot more room for improvement.

On a creative level, he also wasn't very emotionally invested in the Resentful Soldier. He cared little for William Urbesh and mainly saw the project as an introductory work to see how well he collaborated with Gloriana.

As long as the mech came out decently well, Ves was already satisfied.

Obviously, Gloriana saw the project in a different light. She wanted their first collaboration to be as perfect as possible. Perhaps sensing that Ves wasn't as motivated as her, she prodded him plenty of times in order to get him to adopt a serious attitude.

"Okay, okay!" He raised his hands. "I'll put in my best effort, okay!? Just give me some time. I work best when I enter into a focused and inspired mood."

Gloriana clearly didn't need any preparation. She had been looking forward to this moment since the very start she designed a custom mech with Ves. The outcome of this fabrication attempt served as concrete proof of how well they collaborated with each other!

If their mech ended up as a disappointment, then that would seriously affect her confidence in continued collaboration attempts.

Ves didn't share her concerns. The Resentful Soldier not only inherited much of its simplicity from the Desolate Soldier, it also contained some wondrous interactions between their respective design philosophies.

As Ves studied the finalized design carefully, he sensed that the mutual strengthening effect was very much present. Gloriana's specialty naturally leaned towards empowering the specialties of other mech designers. Ves himself had tweaked the spiritual foundation of the Resentful Soldier to be more receptive towards her ideals.

All of their efforts resulted in a slightly more powerful expression of X-Factor than the Desolate Soldier.

Resentment, aggression and desperation poured out of the mech design as if the beast inside desperately wanted to escape its prison!

That suddenly reminded Ves of something.

Nyxie's influence was very pervasive in this project. Not only did he form the main ingredient of the design spirit of the mech, he also gained more direct influence due to the direct addition of his mote of spirituality!

If that wasn't enough, William's treatment also left the mech pilot with a contaminated mind and spiritual potential! The alien entity trapped inside the Ancient Sarcophagus had wormed his way so deeply into William's psyche that the man was nothing like his old self now.

Having surmised all of this, Ves began to ask a very disconcerting question.

"What will happen if William and the Resentful Soldier are put together?"

Nyxie left a very heavy footprint in both of them. They could even be seen as an extension of the ancient alien's influence.

Perhaps something very significant might happen once William interfaced with the Resentful Soldier.

Even so, Ves wasn't deterred. He only cared about completing his assignment. Right now, that meant designing a mech that allowed William to participate in the battles at the front!

The conflict between the sandmen and the humans living in the Komodo Star Sector became known as the Sand War.

Though the name was fairly unimaginative, no one laughed or made light of it. The two words put together invoked a lot of fear and anger from people.

The sandmen were too difficult an opponent to deal with! Their vast numbers and endless fleets had already battered more than a dozen states in the star sector!

Any single battle against the sandmen resulted in at least some deaths. No mech pilot looked forward to facing the sandmen for that reason.

However, Ves did not entirely see that as a negative. A typical sandman fleet wasn't very difficult to defeat. The occasional casualties suffered by the defenders was not excessive, at least at first.

With a relatively high survival rate for mech pilots, the circumstances seemed ideal for stimulating mech pilots into breaking through!

"This is the perfect stage to push William past his limits!"

Though risky, Ves wanted William to gain some actual battle experience for a few months.

If William did not come close to advancing to expert candidate after participating in numerous battles, that was fine.

Ves would just have to visit in person and subject William to another experiment. After his last experiment, he gained an increased understanding in the nature of spirituality and how it tied to the mind of a living human.

Was he confident enough to develop a treatment that uplifted a mech pilot with spiritual potential into an expert candidate? Not really. He still had ideas, though.

As long as Ves understood the nature of force of will a little better, he was confident he could crack the code.

"Are you ready, Ves?" Gloriana asked. "I don't want to delay too long."

Ves shook his head and peppered himself up. "I'm prepared. Let's begin."

The two Journeymen formally started their fabrication run.

The workshop hall began to hum as several machines went active. Because Gloriana wanted Ves to express his ability to the fullest, she insisted on letting him do the bulk of the work.

"I'll assist you on the side and make sure that all of the materials and parts will go to the right places." Gloriana explained her own role. "I'll also inspect all of the parts thoroughly to make sure they don't have any faults."

Their start had been fairly shaky. Despite familiarizing himself extensively with Gloriana's production equipment, Ves still needed some hands-on experience in order to increase his fluency in operating all of the advanced machines.