The Mech Touch

5955 Short On AP

Ves became thoroughly captivated by the Dimension Blade.

Even though it looked like a giant cylindrical pillar that did not possess a sharp edge, he could feel the spatial energies warping around its physical form.

There was no need for the pillar to be sharp because its actual cutting mechanism consisted of concentrated and highly volatile spatial energies!

While Ves truly found the sight of the Dimension Blade to be inspiring, he was not as pleased with its starter options.

"A dimension breach that lasts for only 10 minutes only makes sense if I need to snatch something valuable with as little fuss as possible. It is much more efficient to open a dimension breach that lasts for a full hour. A prepared harvesting team can get a lot more stuff done."

He wanted to see the Dimension Blade in action. He found it agonizing that he had to wait months if not years before he earned enough AP to purchase the necessary upgrades.

"I need to stick to the plan!"

Not only did he have to accumulate a lot of AP to purchase the necessary upgrades, he also had to induct Ketis into the System!

Only when Ketis stepped forward and pretended to gain a blessing that allowed her to cut a hole through dimensions would Ves be able to draw attention away from himself!

He decided to distract himself by inspecting the upgrade options. There was no way that the Dimension Blade was only able to create breaches that lasted up to an hour at most.

[Dimension Blade Upgrades

Remote Breaching - Level 1 (500 Ascension Points) Can extend the maximum range of breach creation to 1 kilometer.

Breach Extension - Level 2 (250 Ascension Points): Can create a dimension breach that lasts for 1 day at the cost of 200 AP.

Breach Expansion - Level 2 (100 Ascension Points): Can expand the maximum breach size by 5 x 5 meters.

Breach Strength - Level 1 (250 Ascension Points): Enables breaching of more resistant dimensions. Enables breaching at locations with slightly higher spatial stability.

Breach Barrier - Level 2 (1000 Ascension Points): Can generate an energy barrier that can block the passage of undesirable energy and matter in both directions up to a low limit.

Semi-permanent Breach - Level 1 (5,000 Ascension Points): Can generate a semi-permanent self-sustaining dimension breach that is able to persist without any further input. Can still be destroyed through external means.]

"Now that is more like it! There are so many options!"

Many of them seemed nice, but there was one powerful option that offered exactly what he needed!

"I need to earn 5,000 AP as soon as possible! There is not much point in choosing this upgrade track if I don't obtain Semi-permanent Breach!"

This was the critical function necessary to transform more planets into different variations of Aeon Corona VII.

It was also a way to grant red humanity access to strange dimensions that were filled with nigh-inexhaustible resources!

Unfortunately, an asking price of 5,000 AP was so prohibitively expensive for Ves that it would take years if not a decade for him to earn that much Ascension Points in an honest fashion.

Ves had already been leaning towards inducting other mech designers into the System.

If he previously gained 75 percent certainty in this strategy, he now became 99 percent convinced that he needed to break his policy of keeping the System for himself!

Creating permanent dimensional tears was too valuable for Ves to ignore!

The longer it took to unlock this upgrade, the greater the opportunity costs he would incur for not being able to work with extradimensional resources sooner!

Though Ves fixated his attention on the Semi-permanent Breach upgrade, he did not forget about the other ones either. He made sure to study them to figure out how the Dimension Blade worked.

"Without upgrades, a dimensional tear can only become an oval that encompasses an area of 20 meters by 5 meters. That's… enough to send a few people or compact shuttles, but it is not enough to send a mech or starship!"

He needed to expand the maximum size of the breach by many times if he wanted to make it suitable for large scale use.

For temporary breaches, it was best if they could become big enough allow for starships to pass through.

This way, their superior volume and cargo space should allow them to quickly retrieve a lot of high-value resources in the new dimension and leave before the breach closed up again.

Size was less important for permanent breaches. Smaller ones were easier to defend, to control and to hide. They made it difficult for monsters from the other side to break into the material realm.

The Remote Breaching upgrade was probably a necessary safety precaution. Who knew whether opening up a dimensional tear would cause a huge amount of lethal energy to pour into the material realm.

Being able to breach dimensions 1 kilometer or 100 kilometers away would drastically reduce the danger to himself.

"In fact, if the range is long enough…"

Ves suddenly gained the idea that he could weaponize this power!

As long as the range and precision was high enough, he could time the creation of a remote dimensional tear right in front of an enemy warship!

However, when Ves noticed the Breach Strength upgrade, his excitement cooled.

The Dimensional Blade was not all-powerful, and the breaches were not impervious to external influences.

Without any additional reinforcement, the dimensional tears could probably be destabilized or outright destroyed.

"I will have to test this out at least once in order to gather the necessary data."

In short, the most basic dimension breach was only useful for peaceful purposes. Ves needed to spend lots of AP on Remote Breaching and Breach Strength to strengthen this capacity to the point where he could tear apart enemies from a distance!

"This could become a trump card as long as I commit to this investment."

The cost was too high, though. It made sense to upgrade Remote Breaching and Breach Strength at least once or twice, but any more than that was disproportionate.

There was no need for Ves to rely on this gimmick to defend himself. He should have plenty of mechs and warships at his disposal. His own phase lord abilities should also suffice. Having to waste valuable AP just to get rid of an enemy was the worst move he could make.

Before Ves completed his inspection of the upgrade options, he spent a minute on thinking over the implications of Breach Barrier.

The fact that the System found it necessary to provide this additional feature as an upgrade option practically confirmed that opening up dimensional tears could be dangerous.

Being able to project a barrier might end up saving many lives. Ves did not intend to neglect this option, but with how little AP he had at his disposal, he had no choice but to dismiss this as a luxury option.

Ves eventually grew a little glum at the end.

It was so frustrating to gain access to so many powerful upgrades, yet find himself awfully short on AP!

He felt more pressured than ever to go on a mad Mission spree. The last time he did that, he almost went crazy from all of the manic stress he accumulated throughout that ordeal.

Though Ves ended up earning a heap of AP, the thought of subjecting himself to that unique form of mental torture once again caused him to shudder.

He needed to put his life in order and build up the courage to initiate a long Mission completion session.

In the end, Ves turned away and left the Dimension Observatory. He gathered all of the information he needed.

Though he felt tempted to create a small breach, he quickly reminded himself that it would be devastating to do so while he was still residing in Diandi Base!

If he really had to spoil his plan and reveal his newfound ability of breaching dimensions, then he should at least board a starship and move to the edge of a star system before he commenced his experiment.

"I have more patience than that. I need to meet with Ketis in person before I make any further decisions."

It was a good thing that Ketis refused to undergo EdNet training.

The only inconvenience was that Ketis was currently leading Task Force Solus over at Reticula Corein V. He could either take another trip, or request his former student to come to him instead.

"It is much more convenient to bring her over. I am done with travel for the year."

Before he left the System Space, Ves checked whether he had missed anything.

There were a number of things he could do. For example, he could make use of the 10 golden lottery tickets that he earned from completing a Supply Mission. He could also make use of the Time Gate.

However, Ves had already exhausted his mind by trying to analyze his available options and selecting the most suitable upgrade track for himself.

He decided to deal with these matters later. Ves hadn't entirely gotten rid of his laissez-faire attitude towards the System. He still preferred to solve his problems by relying on his own strength first.

This was why he hadn't made use of the Superpublish function as soon as it became available. If he kept using it as a crutch by discovering the shortcomings he needed to address, he would eventually lose the ability to diagnose the problems in his works!

This reminded him that he needed to introduce dimensional tears to red humanity without causing everyone to fall into a similar trap.

That might be hard to do when red humanity had very few advantages to rely upon. Who cared about these problems when people were on the verge of going extinct!

Ves briefly winced. A part of him regretted that he rejected the Universal Gate Network. He could have started to work towards creating a gate that could lead him and his precious children back to the Milky Way.

Alas, he rejected this easy escape route in favor of trying to upgrade red humanity's combat power by supplying them with special resources!

It was a choice that reflected Ves' unwillingness to become a coward and seek to defeat the most implacable alien enemies.

Ves finally exited the System Space and took a moment to catch his breath in reality.

"Meow?"

A dark-plated gem cat flew closer and took a closer look at Ves.

"I'm okay, buddy. I am really tired, but I still have a lot of work to take care of. Did you notice anything unusual?"

"Meow meow meow."

"Is that so? That is good to hear. I don't need you to guard me anymore. You can go off on your own if you want."

"Meow!"

Lucky took that as an invitation to leave. The gem cat phased through the floor as he was probably looking to play with Andraste or the other kids.

Ves raised his palm in front of his face and imagined that he wielded the Dimension Blade.

Would he be able to tear a hole in dimensions if he swung it in a certain fashion?

"Maybe it won't be my hand that wields this blade."

He needed Ketis to come over as soon as possible.

With that goal in mind, he settled into his seat and briefly called up the latest status reports of the expeditionary fleet.

He also called up the documents related to the Swordmaidens in order to catch up with the latest developments of this infamous mech legion.

Ketis had been doing well. She gained valuable leadership experience by directing and overseeing the units responsible for surveying Reticula Corein V and harvesting Solus Gas.

Aside from that, she made sure to keep up with her other work. She had learned a thing or two about his leadership style and heavily delegated responsibilities to her officers. This allowed her to squeeze more time in her design lab.

The Stormblade Samurai Mark II Project was making a lot of strides as a result. There was a lot of market potential for a commercialized hyper version of the original Stormblade Samurai model. Ketis had good reason to believe it might become the Larkinson Clan's next bestseller.

Ves agreed.

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