The Mech Touch novel Chapter 825

Word began to spread of the beast rider project’s selection process.

Two-thirds of all female mech pilots were eligible to take part in this selection process! The only ones who didn’t receive permission were those piloting essential mechs such as the Akkara heavy mechs and those who served critical roles such as the mech officers.

Due to the considerable risks and dangers involved with attempting to interface the mind of a mech pilot with the mind of an exobeast, Captain Byrd and Commander Lydia only agreed to let their more expendable mech pilots become Qilanxo’s partners.

Ves wanted to proceed with the selection process soon because he figured that letting Qilanxo grow close to her new partners would help make her more cooperative to the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

If she showed less animosity and more willingness to cooperate, then the beast rider project could proceed with the difficult steps of building some kind of hybrid neural interface to allow a baseline human mech pilot to mimic the remote interfacing abilities of the blessed and cursed people.

Right now, a normal human mech pilot wouldn’t be able to connect with Qilanxo’s biological neural interface inside her massive head.

For several reasons, the Vandals declined to let Venerable Xie join the tryouts.

The Pale Dancer may not be very useful against the sacred gods, but it was absolutely deadly against enemy mechs. The ground expedition couldn’t afford to lose the strength of this expert mech because it served as one of their sharpest offensive tools.

After all, according to Ves, since the sacred gods called up most of their resonance powers on their own, it shouldn’t be entirely essential if their beast riders were the equivalent of expert pilots.

"Besides, Venerable Xie is a man. What does he know of motherhood and other female concerns?" Ves smirked.

Setting up a rotation of tryouts where every mech pilot received one minute to convince Qilanxo to select them required a bit of preparation work.

While the project team worked together with the planners to schedule the entire event, Ves took care of some other business in the meantime. He met up with Talkative Jimmy again at one of the mess halls. As they ate their meals, they began to engage in a casual discussion again.

Ves deliberately sought out to make their gatherings a regular occasion. Talkative Jimmy was an extremely well-connected Vandal. Sometimes, Ves even suspected him to be a member of Flashlight, though he could have just been what he appeared to be on the surface, a good-for-nothing whose only hobby was to gossip.

In exchange for hearing tidbits of information that he normally wouldn’t have been able to find out elsewhere, Ves reciprocated in turn by telling some of his own stories. He found it to be a useful way to shape the opinions of Talkative Jimmy’s audience.

Right now, Talkative Jimmy expressed a lot of interest in the beast rider selection process! As the person in charge, no one knew about the selection process more than Ves himself, so Jimmy eagerly asked his questions.

"Is it true that the selection process is limited to women?"

"Yes. I think it should be obvious why. This isn’t an unthinking mech we are talking about. Qilanxo is a female of her species and it wouldn’t be appropriate to pair her up with a man."

"Only two mech pilots are allowed to become her beast riders, right? What do they have to look out for? How can the women who are about to try their luck increase their odds of succes?"

This was a difficult question, as it ultimately depended on the whims of a thinking beast. His project team did manage to come up with a list of factors that might make the beast take note.

"It helps to understand her species first. The exobiologists compiled a basic book on the properties and life cycle of the god species. Mech pilots ought to be familiar with the basics, such as our admittedly unproven theory that the personalities of the sacred gods take after their previous beast riders. Therefore, those with the personality or thinking pattern of former chosen will fare best."

Qilanxo’s previous chosen likely enjoyed a very high status in Samar. Being chosen by the gods directly elevated them to the top of the ancient city’s ruling structure. A good fit for Qilanxo therefore needed to be confident, assertive, imperious and be a leader.

This was also why the project team considered Commander Lydia to be an extremely fitting beast rider for Qilanxo. Ves mentally sighed in relief that her responsibilities prevented her from trying out.

As Ves briefly explained these qualities, Talkative Jimmy frowned.

"That sounds really difficult to fulfill. Only our mech officers will stand a chance of being selected."

"We’re starting with the rank-and-file first. We don’t want to risk anyone too important if we can help it. We’ll only be trodding out our officers if no one else is to Qilanxo’s liking."

"Is there nothing else than can help?"

"Well, the act of interfacing with an alien exobeast is a very different experience from interfacing with the processors and operating system of a mech." Ves casually explained. "Since we are kind of new at this, we don’t expect to get it working quickly. Things might go wrong, or incompatibilities might arise. In these cases, possessing a strong mind that can take a lot of pressure will be helpful in enduring the strain. Those who don’t last long enough in the mental resilience training sessions are too weak in Qilanxo’s eyes."

This was another unproven theory he wanted to throw out into the rumor mill. The Vandals and Swordmaidens resumed their training sessions after the Vandals captured some new dwarves from the surrounding tribes to conduct the sessions with. However, far too few Vandal mech pilots lasted long enough to match the performance of the much more impressive Swordmaidens.

Ves did not want Qilanxo to favor her Swordmaiden beast rider over her Vandal beast rider. Anyone she selected from the pool of female Vandal mech pilots better be strong enough to maintain her interest.

After answering a few smaller questions about the selection process, Ves decided to ask some questions on his own. "What is Venerable Xie up to these days?"

"Same old stuff." Jimmy shrugged. "He accepted a couple more mech pilots and shored up their training. According to what I heard, their performance drastically shot up during the recent training drills."

Expert pilots possessed a much deeper understanding and mastery of piloting skills than advanced pilots. Their skills had reached a level beyond the reach of mortals. Their greater height allowed them to spot the flaws in the piloting abilities of ordinary mech pilots and offer succinct suggestions for them to improve.

Family always benefited first from the generosity of an expert pilot! _{freewebnσvel.cѳm}