The Mech Touch

5967 Sixth Generation Living Mechs

"What are runes?"

Ves asked this question many times over the past few hours.

He plunged the depths of his knowledge base and tried to form a coherent answer that made sense.

He also accessed the books and tomes, both real and virtual, for any solid theories and references.

It did not surprise him that the RA and RF's internal databases contained references to runes.

However, any mention of them was scant and shallow. The scientific community was aware of them to an extent, but the prevailing rule that only domain shapers were qualified to work with them heavily limited people's ability to apply runes on a wide scale.

Given how the mention of runes was so conspicuously absent among the academic literature he had access to, he began to suspect that the Red Association secretly maintained a high-

level virtual library that could only be accessed by Master Mech Designers and Star Designers.

It made sense to restrict their knowledge and spread to lesser professionals. There was no point in getting distracted by them. Learning about the existence of runes may even distort their progression and end up harming their career prospects.

"To be honest, I have become one of them. Even now, I am thinking about inducing the development of Ascension Runes in my Destructive Phasing Module."

He couldn't get rid of the idea. It sounded incredibly promising. If he was able to master the development of a true rune-supported advanced hyper module, the Dark Zephyr would readily exceed his previous best works.

The Phobos would look like an amateur in front of the Dark Zephyr!

This was such an enormous leap in combat power that Ves believed it could radically redefine his high-end mechs just as much as Gloriana's archetech!

His passion burned hotter and brighter when he began to envision all sorts of mechs that borrowed the power of Ascension Runes to accomplish feats that defied reality to such a massive extent that they could be regarded as miracles!

He believed he had accidentally stumbled upon an idea so powerful, that it could firmly separate every living mech that possessed it from older machines that lacked this feature.

Ves quickly activated a projection and began to write down his thoughts and speculations.

Driven by the inspiration in his mind, he rapidly fleshed out his theories and began to form a tentative new theoretical framework that formed the basis of his powerful idea.

"Ascension Runes are runes that are naturally formed inside sufficiently powerful living mechs. That is because they conform to the rules of high-level artifacts as well as living entities. In most cases, artifacts can become comprehensively more powerful if a qualified artisan adds more runes to their makeup. Ascension Runes turn this order around. Due to their powerful growth potential, third order living mechs can gradually form them based on many different factors, causing them to grow powerful in a targeted fashion."

The most important fact in all of this was that Ascension Runes did not require the participation of a domain shaper creation cultivator in order to add to a living mech.

It was the living mech that did most of the work!

The selection and formation of the Ascension Runes took place naturally over time. Depending on the preferences of the mech pilot, the guidance from a design spirit and the influence of external stimuli, third order living mechs possessed the ability to grow in a similar fashion to mutated beasts or maybe even calamity beasts!

"Now that I think about it, third order living mechs are akin to mechanical versions of mutated beasts that just happen to be pilotable!"

The comparison between third order living mechs and beasts strengthened his belief that this was a viable research direction.

"Ascension Runes are already an existing phenomenon. Any third order living mech can grow them. I am not sure how many of them a mech can develop, but it has to be at least as much as the runes on the Oceancaller."

Would a third order living mech with the same quantity of runes as the Oceancaller become just as powerful?

Not necessarily. It was not just the quantity of runes that mattered, but how well they synergized with each other.

The runes were akin to a programming language. A software program could be weak or strong depending on how well the coder strung programming commands together.

Therefore, a well-designed artifact that made the most out of 40 runes could theoretically defeat a poorly-designed artifact that utilized 400 runes.

"The problem with Ascension Runes is that their growth and formation is organic rather than directed. It is easy for each individual Ascension Rune to add a lot of individual power, but it is not quite clear whether they can be combined together to produce a transformative combination effect."

This was still a bit unclear to Ves. Third order living mechs did not exist long enough to form a large amount of Ascension Runes. Without being able to study a truly old third order living mech, Ves lacked the empirical data needed to prove his theory.

"Wait! That is not entirely correct. There is at least one living mech that is a lot older…"

He immediately thought of the Ouroboros. Last he managed to get into contact with Axelar Streon's famous ace mech, Ves had just applied a long-awaited upgrade that fixed many of its congenital deficiencies.

"By now, it should have evolved into a third order living mech, and a powerful one at that!"

The Ouroboros in its current incarnation was like an uncaged beast. It was no longer held back by its deficiencies anymore!

Even if the Ouroboros was not yet able to transcend into a god mech due to other major reasons, that did not change the fact that it had probably accrued a huge amount of Ascension Runes!

"Back when I upgraded it, I already completed the development of fifth generation living mechs."

Ascension Runes was the defining characteristic of the fourth generation of living mechs, which meant that the current version of the Ouroboros was probably filled with Ascension Runes!

"I need to take a good look at this machine!"

The problem was that General Axelar Streon and the Streon Ancient Clan were preoccupied with the preparations for the proposed grand heist.

Ves would have to leave New Constantinople VIII and travel to the territory owned by the Streons in order to get a good look at the Ouroboros.

"It's not necessary." He shook his head. "I can figure this out myself."

He was confident he could harvest a lot of insights if he was allowed to examine the current iteration of the Ouroboros up close, but he resisted the urge to schedule a reunion.

There were many unknowns and uncertainties surrounding Ascension Runes. Just because he was able to induce his third order living mechs into forming them did not mean he understood their working principles.

He just made an accidental discovery and just ran with it. Ves became akin to a hacker that barely learned how to exploit an aspect of reality.

While it was better for him in the long run if he studied the rules and deconstructed all of the working principles, this was not possible. Ves strongly believed he needed to become a Master Mech Designer before he could embark on this high-

level research activity.

For now, he should continue to stick with what was working and expand on that. Ves was hardly the first engineer or mech designer who willingly harnessed powers that he could not fully control.

As Ves continued to flesh out his theoretical model for advanced hyper modules, he tried his best to figure out a solution for the application of Ascension Runes.

He frowned and rubbed his hairless chin in thought.

"Advanced hyper modules cannot reach their full potential unless they are augmented by a set of runes. Third order living mechs already possess them, but their Ascension Runes correspond to their mech frames as a whole. I can't just transplant them or copy them to the advanced hyper module. That doesn't make much sense. Even if Ascension Runes possess a remarkably capacity of adapting to different objects, that still does not address the fact that they are far from optimized in enhancing the power of a new module."

If Ascension Runes was akin to the programming code of a mech, then it was obvious that it could not be applied to a piece of mech equipment such as a laser rifle, a power reactor or a flight system.

Attempting to do so would just cause all of the parts and gear to crash and become inoperable!

Ves had a hunch that the rules were much looser when it came to E-technology, but there was a limit to how much Ascension Runes could be stretched.

This was a problem because the advanced hyper module needed to derive its power from its own exclusive set of Ascension Runes.

If it had to 'share' power with the Ascension Runes of a third order living mech as a whole, then that would severely discount the power of the advanced hyper module.

"How can I induce a third order living mech to produce a second set of Ascension Runes for its advanced hyper module?"

It took a few minutes before Ves became struck by another bout of inspiration.

"Mrow~"

Blinky emerged from Ves' head and floated in the air. The fluffy purple spiritual cat swished his tail in both interest and curiosity.

"This… this might actually work…"

To be honest, he came up with this idea a few times in the past, but he always pushed it aside because it sounded like a solution without a problem.

What was different was that Ves just happened to struggle with the problem in question at this time!

In other words, the solution that had long waited to be used finally became relevant!

Ves quickly began to adjust his theoretical model to incorporate his latest brainchild.

The model became more complete. Everything fit together. Every logical relationship built on top of each other with no obvious incongruities.

It was… perfect in a way that resonated with his design flame.

He knew that as long as he managed to prove the validity of this innovative theoretical model, he would complete the initial development of his sixth generation living mechs!

"Sixth generation! This is too soon!"

It had only been a short time ago that he came up with the fifth generation of living mechs. The Age of Dawn introduced red humanity to exotic radiation, which made cultivation a lot more accessible to every life form.

Ves easily managed to develop fifth generation living mechs based on a simple premise. Since his products were alive, they should also be able to cultivate by themselves.

"My sixth generation living mechs take this comparison a step further. Since people can acquire companion spirits, living mechs should be able acquire their own companion spirits as well!"

It was a simple yet incredibly subversive idea!

He had already applied it to living fey in the past, but this was different. Instead of using companion spirits to empower an external module, Ves wanted to do so with an internal module, one that directly strengthened the mech itself!

Many people were still struggling to wrap their heads around the fact that they could obtain their own companion spirits as long as they ingested the right fruit. The notion of tying them to living mechs was even less easy to accept by the general population. Few people understood how the Fey Fianna model actually worked after all of this time.

Ves briefly frowned. "Companion spirits is a clunky name. I need to change that into a different one in order to distinguish them from the normal ones."

In any case, the existence of mech-based companion spirits had the potential to solve one of the greatest problems in the development of advanced hyper modules.

So long as these new subordinate entities could bond with advanced hyper modules and gradually form their own set of Ascension Runes based on their specific situations, then that would allow mechs such as the Dark Zephyr to continually strengthen their hyper abilities!

"Now that I think about it, this setup sounds similar to characters in a virtual reality game. A third order living mech can essentially level up by forming more Ascension Runes that act as 'experience points'. The same mech can also increase the power of its advanced hyper module as if it is an ultimate ability by adding 'skill points'!"

Ascension Runes acted as both experience points and skill points in this very simplistic example. The Ascension Runes were just being applied to different subjects.

"Maybe I should come up with a new name for the Ascension Runes developed by the companion spirit of a living mech."

Ves continued to expand and refine his theoretical framework in order to form a complete theoretical base for his advanced hyper modules. He needed to come up with a whole net set of definitions in order to clarify a lot of stuff.

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