The Mech Touch novel Chapter 797

The wild god appeared just as majestic up close as a sacred god. They possessed the same bulk and formless aura of pressure. Though Dr. Tillman hadn’t quite determined if the giant exobeasts consisted of one species with several subraces or multiple species, Ves leaned towards the former.

The wild gods had too much in common despite their somewhat divergent appearances. The diversity of their subraces resembled the diversity of dog breeds throughout the galaxy.

"Wow. This god truly does resemble an organic heavy mech." Ketis uttered with an awed expression. This was her first time she ever came close to one of the exobeasts. "How can they grow so large on a heavy gravity planet?"

"That’s what the exobiologists are about to find out." Ves replied while flicking his head over to the exobiologists already starting to take tissue samples of the big brute.

Dr. Tillman and her team practically urged their fast transport to sprint towards the carcass as soon as the Flagrant Swordmaidens confirmed it bought the farm.

Chief Dakkon and score of technicians also started unloading prefab cold chamber parts. In order to preserve the corpse as best as possible, the Vandals planned to envelop the corpse in a giant chamber that lowered the temperature inside.

Of course, the cooks already started picking out their choice cuts of meat. A regular knife wouldn’t be able to cut through the hard scales and thick hide, so they needed the assistance of the Swordmaidens to hack out a few small samples for them to experiment on at their mobile kitchen.

A lot of Vandals and Swordmaidens eagerly tracked the progress of the cooks, finding their work a lot more interesting than the science stuff performed by the exobiologists and other experts.

A small competition emerged as the mech pilots silently justled for the right to take the first bite. Everyone valued the bragging rights of partaking in the flesh of a god, but the person enjoyed a definite advantage over all the other braggers!

Ves silently shook his head as he witnessed their arguing behind the scenes. They had enough sense to remain alert inside their mechs in case the wild god had a mate or something, but the slight movements betrayed their vigorous arguing.

While the cold chamber slowly took shape, Ves and Ketis stood by the side along with the rest of the gawkers. As mech designers, their expertise left them with little to do. The only reason they tagged along was because they might be relevant if the exobiologists identified anything related to neural interfaces.

Ves had analyzed the previous sensor readings over and over again and couldn’t help but conclude that the sacred gods definitely maintained a neural connection with their beast riders!

Whether the beasts accomplished this through an artificial implant or a natural organ, the Flagrant Swordmaidens would soon find out as the exobiologists began to cut the carcass apart.

Because the beast was so unimaginably huge and tough, the exobiologists started enlisting the aid of a Swordmaiden mech. The cutting had to be done with care and precision, but also with a substantial amount of force because the wild god possessed an immensely tough body.

While the exobiologists were expected to become absorbed in their studies for a couple of days, Ves brought Ketis over to the Pale Dancer, which had stood down from combat.

"That’s your expert pilot’s old mech, isn’t it? It certainly looks the part!" Ketis remarked.

Ves nodded in agreement. The mech oozed quality to any mech designer who possessed a decent set of eyes. "Every part about an expert mech is a pinnacle design. With regular designs, you often have to make compromises in terms of cost due to diminishing returns. With expert mechs, your budget is a lot more generous. If you can improve an expert mech’s performance by one percent at the cost of a heavy mech, then most expert mech designers will eagerly accept such a trade."

Ketis threw a glance at Ves as if she couldn’t believe a mech designer would be so wasteful to give up an entire expert mech just to squeeze out an extra percentage of performance for a single mech. In most circumstances, the addition of a heavy mech often trumped over a marginal performance boost of a single mech.

Yet this rule didn’t apply to expert mechs. These peak performance machines which possessed enough power to slaughter a hundred ordinary mechs in the right conditions didn’t actually see that much use in such a fashion. As trump cards, they mostly deployed against other expert mechs.

In these intense clashes which pitted demigods against demigods, the difference a single percentage of performance could make might be able to tip the balance between the two elite mechs!

If a force commander had to make the choice to save a billion credits but lose an expert mech, or spend that billion credits and enable the expert mech to win the clash, most would make the second choice for sure!

This was also the principal reason why expert mechs rarely entered the private sector. Outfits without any backing of a state simply couldn’t afford to make such costly tradeoffs and still be able to run a profit.

It was cheaper to raise a hundred regular mechs and provide for their supplies and transportation than to support a single expert mech!

As a ballistic rifleman mech, the Pale Dancer resembled some of his Crystal Lord’s design choices by prioritizing speed and mobility while covering up its frame with a thin layer of extravagantly strong compressed armor plating.

The Pale Dancer made use of an armor system that completely surpassed the cost of the Veltrex armor system. Though the actual degree of strengthening wasn’t as drastic, it nonetheless allowed the thin and nimble Pale Dancer to shrug off ordinary rifle rounds and laser beams with relative ease, though it fared less well against penetrating attacks such as kinetic projectiles launched by cannons or railguns.

As a custom mech, the mech designer of the Pale Dancer should have invested a lot of their emotions into the machine. Yet whenever Ves came close to the mech, his sixth sense only sensed a diminished sense of restraint, as if this mech’s true potential had forcefully been shackled by other priorities.

Ves regaled his speculation concerning its design to Ketis. "Internal politics can be kind of messy. The Senior Mech Designer in the service of the Royal House of Talk had probably received an instruction from another prince to limit the effectiveness of the Pale Dancer. A mech designer can employ hundreds of tricks to sabotage their own designs without making it obvious."

"It must have been rather painful for that Senior to cripple his own design."

"I’m not saying you should discard your bonds. They can be a strength and a reliable form of support for you. There’s nothing wrong with respecting the mech designer who raised you, but you shouldn’t stand still and do nothing if she ever leads you to the wrong path. Even if you are just a Novice right now, you already possess the qualifications to set out on your own." _{fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm}