The Mech Touch

5971 Hyper Material Advancements

It was not necessary to use bad materials to make a good mech.

The skill of the mech designer could compensate for many of the shortcomings of inferior materials.

Yet there were hard limits to how extensively a mech designer could turn trash into treasure.

Any professional mech designer should be able to cobble together a functional mech out of terrible materials if it was necessary.

The mech designer would hate it, but it did not matter so long as they delivered.

Even so, almost every mech designer preferred to work with superior materials if they had a choice.

More powerful materials gave a mech designer more options. The mech in question could become extremely powerful in a single aspect, or achieve a balanced performance profile with a very high baseline.

Cost and resource scarcity prevented many mech designers from using as much expensive materials as they wished.

This was not an issue that Ves had to worry about too much these days. The LMC was selling more products than ever. Partial ownership in Isthmus Manufacturing gave Ves and his clansmen an even greater source of income than before, so he no longer had to worry about restraining his budget for high-

end mech design projects.

His growing relations with the Red Two and the first-rate colonial superstates granted him additional channels for rare materials. He could trade MTA merits and other concessions for materials that were normally reserved for in-house usage.

For now, Ves only ordered a batch of materials from the Red Association. The mechers were most invested in discovering and developing hypers that were most suited to be used in their products.

After Ves, Andraste and Alexa examined the hyper alloy stored in the first container, they began to open a few other containers.

They became exposed to various different hyper materials with varying origins and properties.

Though Ves judged that most of them were useless for his current project, he soon encountered a material that seemed to deepen the shadows in its vicinity.

The sample came in the form of an unassuming matte gray alloy bar. Despite its dull appearance, the hyper alloy conveyed an impression that it was about to transform anything nearby into shadow.

"Maaaw!"

Yaika pulled back as she received a small backlash when she attempted to examine the strange alloy. The kitten did not actually receive much harm, but that did not stop Blinky from licking her back to health.

"Mrowww…"

"It hurts." Andraste whined as she experienced her companion spirit's pain. What is wrong with this hyper material?"

"Interesting." Ves grinned as Blinky examined the shadowy alloy without suffering a backlash like his daughter. The Star Cat had faced much more powerful threats than a small piece of metal. "For whatever reason, this alloy not only draws in a lot of shadow energy, but also tries to phase nearby matter into a different dimension that is strongly related to shadow, darkness and other related concepts."

"Different dimension? Does it contain phasewater?"

"It does. I can clearly sense that it contains a high concentration of phasewater. It is well-known that any transphasic material that contains a lot of phasewater constantly destabilizes the local space. What you are seeing is this exact same effect, but themed around shadows. This is one of the many reasons why we are keeping our distance from the samples. It wouldn't be your companion spirit alone that would get hurt from exposure to this dangerous material."

Ves did not care about the risk factors of this material. From his perspective, more volatile activity often translated in greater power.

There were two major reasons why this hyper alloy attracted so much interest.

The first reason was that the material happened to possess an effect that closely aligned with what he was looking for. He needed to find a powerful hyper material that could allow the Dark Zephyr to phase through solid matter. Shifting the mech into a parallel dimension that by borrowing the power of shadow sounded like a viable option as long as Venerable Tusa was able to resonate with the Ultimate Module.

The second reason why he wanted to work with the alloy was because it might actually allow him to locate the dimension connected to the power of shadows!

If he was able to gather enough information about this mysterious dimension, would he be able to confirm its dimension number with the help of the Dimension Telescope?

If so, it would save him a lot of AP and effort!

Perhaps this was the proper way for him to discover useful dimensions!

Instead of working hard to accumulate 1000 AP so that he could purchase the Observation Search upgrade, he could skip all of that by relying on more conventional measures to find and locate profitable dimensions.

Regardless of whether this shadowy alloy was suitable to be used as the key material of his experimental destructive phasing module, he was bound to study it for its transdimensional properties alone!

"So the mechers actually did it." Ves said with growing appreciation in his voice. "They actually made a transphasic hyper material that is strong enough to be useful and tough enough to withstand the rigors of high-end combat."

Naturally occurring hyper materials originally did not possess transphasic properties. That meant that everyone had to go out of their way to merge hyper materials and transphasic materials together.

The fact that an alloy like this existed meant that the mechers already managed to attain crucial breakthroughs in this area!

"Alexa, please explain the properties of this wonderful material."

"Gladly. Teraixe-063 is a very recently developed transphasic hyper material. It was originally developed as a way to transform matter into shadow energy. While the end result is not able to accomplish this, it is able to phase any nearby matter into a parallel dimension that is remarkably easy to enter compared to the alternatives. The stability and reliability of this shadow phasing property varies depending on the presence of light and shadow in the immediate environment. It still performs well enough in brightly lit areas, but its effects grow remarkably stronger when engulfed in shadow and darkness."

Trying to transform a mech into shadow energy was way too ambitious of a goal. Only god mechs possessed this ability as far as Ves knew, and that was because the line between energy and matter had already begun to blur at the third major cultivation rank.

Teraixe-063 was not a True God-level material, but its combination of properties happened to fit almost exactly what Ves needed!

He couldn't hold himself back any longer. He hopped over the ramp and approached the volatile hyper alloy without any fear.

Once he got close, he ignored the volatile spatial activity and directly took hold of the sample of Teraixe-063.

"Fascinating." Ves whispered as he utilized all of his senses to establish a more intuitive feel of this interesting material. "The phasewater concentration of Teraixe-063 is remarkably high. Under normal circumstances, this object should have turned itself apart a long time ago. How is it able to remain stable? Wait, the shadow energy… it exerts a dampening effect somehow. So long as the supply of shadow energy is not cut off, it will naturally maintain a suppressive effect. How convenient."

Andraste wanted to follow after her father, but Alexa kept a firm hold of the eager girl's arm.

"Remember your father's lesson. Do not approach strange and volatile materials without sufficient protection."

"Then why is papa allowed to get close?"

"He already enjoys sufficient protection. He is a phase lord after all. A being of his stature can withstand even greater dangers."

"Alexa is right." Ves said as he carefully placed the sample of Teraixe-63 back into its container. "Potential threats and hazards are not universally dangerous. It all depends on strength. The stronger you become, the less you have to fear from the cosmos. I am not one to boast, but I have grown pretty strong myself."

"Stronger than Ketis?" Andraste innocently asked.

"Ehm, I am definitely stronger than your swordsmanship tutor!"

His daughter did not believe him. "Really?"

"I'm not as weak as I appear. I know that Ketis can do pretty cool stuff with her swords, but she is only human. I might not possess any sophisticated fighting skills, but I have a lot of mass and energy at my disposal. Once my body reaches the height of three mechs stacked on top of each other, do you think I can still be threatened by a sword that is as small as my fingernail?"

"Ketis can launch incredibly powerful sword energy attacks, you know! She can slay lots of giants!"

Ves inwardly sighed. His daughter had become such a Ketis fangirl that she completely dismissed her own father's combat prowess.

This was a travesty!

If not for the fact that any footage related to the transformation of the Dominion of Man was classified, he would have shown it to his girl already.

She would definitely root for her own father if he was able to see her fight and prevail against the clone of a God King!

Oh well.

Ves retreated from the long table and returned to the ramp.

He continued the examination of hyper materials. Most of them were very powerful and interesting in their own right, but that did not mean they were suited for his purpose.

He identified a number of hyper materials that were more suitable for the Phobos as opposed to the Dark Zephyr.

He also encountered hyper materials that possessed desirable traits, yet also interfered with the functioning of Teraixe-63.

This was one of the problems with combining multiple strong and volatile materials. They tended to lose a lot of stability when placed in close proximity with other hypers with overlapping functions.

Fortunately, Ves finally managed to encounter another high-

grade hyper material that fit all of his requirements.

"What do you feel from this piece of rock, Andraste?"

"Maaaw."

"According to Yaika, the dark stone makes her feel weaker. It is dangerous, but not as obvious as some of the other materials. It is much more insidious."

"That is an apt description. Its threat can be just as big as a sword or a laser weapon. It just isn't as obvious. Please introduce us to this material, Alexa."

"This hyper material is artificially produced by placing rocks with similar material compositions inspecially prepared enclosed space. The exact configuration and details of the production site are classified, but it is clear that it is strongly related to the darkness element. The result is a batch of high-

grade hyper rocks that absorb darkness energy and can utilize it to weaken the molecular bonds between molecules. Strong exposure to this effect can cause objects up to and including organics such as human bodies to collapse into fine particles."

This was the second effect that Ves wanted to obtain!

"What is it called?"

"Omen Stone."

"That is a remarkably succinct and fitting name for this deadly hyper material. At least it wasn't named after its inventor."

Alexa coughed. "In fact, the Omen Stone is a product developed and sold by Professor Hirastus Omen, a relatively young but rising material scientist directly employed by the Red Association."

"..."

"Professor Omen does not have as many credentials as his older peers in his sector, but he is also not weighed down by a large body of work that has either become outdated or lost much of its relevance. He is a rising star in his field, much as you are in the field of mech design."

That was high praise coming from the likes of Alexa. She only respected a few brilliant people.

Ves adopted a speculative expression. "You are making me develop an interest in meeting Professor Omen. We may be able to establish a lucrative form of cooperation with each other."

That reminded him that he already befriended another materials-oriented mech designer.

Last he heard, Tristan Wesseling was doing better than ever as his specialization experienced a renaissance after the arrival of the Age of Dawn.

Perhaps Ves should get in touch with an old friend and see whether they could cooperate on a deeper level.

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