The Mech Touch

5983 Difficult Archetech

After closer inspection, Ves and Gloriana confirmed that the Dark Zephyr Mark II was not in the best physical shape.

The Unending alloy plating had protected the expert mech for a long time, but it was impossible procure more of it after it had been destroyed in battle.

This forced the maintenance crews to make use of armor plating made out of entirely different materials in order to restore the expert mech's armor coverage.

While the Larkinsons had done their best to match the mass and density of the replacement plating, it was impossible to make everything as congruent as before. The inconsistencies produced multiple misalignments and slightly reduced the fluency and the reliability of the expert mech.

This was just one of many ailments that affected the Dark Zephyr's performance!

Trying to repair it all was a massive endeavor. Gloriana estimated that she would have to spend at least 3 weeks to carefully reconstruct and restore the Dark Zephyr Mark II to his original form.

Fortunately, that was not necessary this time.

"I am glad that we do not have to restore the Dark Zephyr to his old state." Gloriana said after she had studied all of the data readings. "Once we commence our upgrade run, we will have to test the Ship of Theseus concept much more extensively than before. Hardly anything of the current mech will be retained once we are done with our work."

The Dark Zephyr Mark III was superior in every way, but all of that demanded a much more extensive reconstruction as a result.

Replacing conventional metallic parts with archemetal equivalents was such a massive overhaul that it was impossible to retain so many outdated and inferior parts.

Ves and Gloriana did not even like any of the materials that made up their oldest expert mech.

Back when they originally designed their first batch of expert mech under the supervision of Master Moira Willix, the Larkinson Clan used to be in a much poorer position.

All of that changed drastically over the years. The Larkinson Clan of today was in a much better position to design and fabricate high-end mechs.

The LMC, the Open Consortium, the T Institute and many friendly business partners all possessed the capacity to supply rare and valuable strategic materials to the Larkinson Clan.

Ves also had the luxury to spend his MTA merits on a lot of exclusive goods from the Red Association's Merit Exchange.

His tier 3 galactic citizenship combined with his many contributions opened up access to a large selection of materials that ordinary mech designers could only dream of obtaining!

Neither Ves nor Gloriana held back all that much when they selected a lot of powerful and expensive materials to elevate the physical parameters of the Dark Zephyr.

Even though his slim frame prevented him from piling up a lot of armor, the advantages of archetech meant that his effective ability to resist damage had increased by a huge margin!

This was especially the case when the structure of the mech frame consisted of first-class alloys that were harder and tougher than Unending alloy!

So long as enough hyper materials were added to the archemetal, Ves believed that the new and improved Dark Zephyr should still retain his spiritual prowess. It might even improve due to the use of superior and more specialized hyper materials!

However, Ves and Gloriana could not say for certain whether the Dark Zephyr's parameters would improve as much as they anticipated.

After all, ever since the Age of Dawn had commenced, many simulation programs became inaccurate and unreliable. The Red Association had yet to publish a comprehensive new set of formulas and data sets that could be used to accurately model the performance of hyper technology.

Simulation programs already struggled to predict the performance of high-ranking mechs, especially when the extraordinary willpower of expert pilots and ace pilots came into the picture.

Vulcan had been working to improve the realism of the MSTS, but it was very hard to account for phenomena that were difficult to reproduce.

In short, every mech designer including the Larkinsons had no ability to fully predict the actual performance of a hyper mech in advance.

Additional complications such as archetech and the Dark Wind Module made it even more difficult for anyone to have a solid clue of how good the Dark Zephyr may become at the end!

This was incredibly frustrating for the people involved. Tusa and his battle partner had little idea what was in store for them. The lower and upper boundaries of the possible boost in performance were so far apart that it was pointless for them to think about it any further.

This also put a lot of pressure on Ves and Gloriana. Both of them needed to trust that their design work was sound and that they could adequately handle the fabrication of archetech in the coming days.

Tusa and a handful of mech designers gathered before a brand-new set of production machines.

"As you know, we intend to replace virtually all of the Dark Zephyr's existing parts with archetech equivalents." Gloriana explained. "The necessary archemetal cannot be produced through conventional means. This is why we have purchased a set of archemetal fabrication machines. They are derived from the production machines used by the arche race and produce blocks of archemetal in a manner that is similar to how the aliens grow their own archeshells. It is an organic-like production process that is much different from what humans are accustomed to. It is a troublesome production method, but as long as we do not make any mistakes, the results are far superior to what we can achieve with normal parts and processes."

The expert pilot looked at all of the advanced production equipment and felt totally lost. He did not understand how ordinary 3D printers and so on worked. How the hell could he judge anything from looking at these incomprehensible devices?

"I trust in your abilities." Venerable Tusa said in a humble tone. "You have made a lot of promises about archetech. It is my hope that you are able to fulfill them all. I will not be upset if you can't, but I hope that everything goes right. How sure are you that your work will live up to your highest expectations?"

That was a difficult question to answer. Ves and Gloriana both exchanged glances for a moment.

"It is… challenging to produce a nearly flawless result." Gloriana reluctantly admitted. "Our craftsmanship is unequaled among our ranks, but we have never seriously produced a full archemech. We have practiced the exotic new production processes many times in virtual simulations, but their fidelity is limited. We will most definitely encounter multiple brand-new problems that we simply cannot prepare in advance. Combined with the additional complications related to the need to upgrade an existing mech as opposed to creating one on scratch, we are not confident that we will be able to turn your Dark Zephyr into a masterwork mech. I estimate that we have a 40 percent chance at best."

"My personal estimate is 50 percent." Ves added. "The quality of the physical frame will probably not meet our highest standards, but that is not related to the spiritual qualities of the Dark Zephyr. I have made massive strides in this area, so I think there is a good chance that the superior spiritual foundation of your expert mech will overcompensate for the physical shortcomings of his archemetal frame."

This was not a new story for Ves. His solo masterworks had always been this way. He could never bring himself to care as much for physical perfection as his wife. His style and priorities were just too far apart from hers.

Though Ves gave Tusa a little bit more hope, he still felt disappointed. Piloting a genuine masterwork mech had long been one of his cherished wishes.

Although he did not begrudge other lucky expert pilot for being able to benefit from piloting masterworks, Tusa could not help but feel inferior for missing out on this amazing benefit.

The Dark Zephyr was too old. He had come to life during a time when Ves and Gloriana's craftsmanship was much rougher and more immature than now. The expert light skirmisher had also been built years before Gloriana successfully developed her ground-breaking god body solution.

Gloriana reached out and patted the seasoned expert pilot's shoulder. "It will be okay, Tusa. There is no real loss if we fail to create a masterwork. I have made sure to integrate the god body solution in as many archemetal parts as possible. As long as the Dark Zephyr is able to absorb enough E energy over time, his physical frame will automatically evolve to masterwork standard. It is just…"

"We have never tested the combination between archetech and Gloriana's god body solution in reality." Ves informed his cousin. "The interaction between the two might work as planned, but it might also result in anti-synergy that ultimately delays or hinders this gradual process. In my opinion, the additional complexity of archemetal components will probably cause the Dark Zephyr to improve his physical quality at least several times slower than before. There is just so much more that needs to happen in order to elevate your expert mech's physical standards."

Tusa only roughly understood the point that the two mech designers were making. Instead of worrying himself sick over this complicated issue, he turned his attention to the two recently recruited Journeymen that were standing right behind the Miracle Couple.

"Will the two of them participate in the upgrade run?"

Gloriana nodded. "They shall, but not in a capacity that you expect. Neither Adrien Marceau nor Ariana Roux have become proficient enough in archetech to fabricate the parts by themselves or under supervision. They shall act as our assistants instead. They will be responsible for moving parts and materials around. They will also be responsible for scanning the archemetal parts to verify that their quality is up to standard."

That was the most that the pair of newcomers could do. The basics of archetech were just too difficult to learn in a short amount of time.

Perhaps the story might be different in a few years, but that required a lot more time.

"Will you be able to produce archemetal parts, Ves?"

"Somewhat. I am not as good as Gloriana in this aspect, but I have learned enough from her to gain the qualifications to fabricate simpler archemetal components. I will still have plenty of work to do, but my involvement is not as great as you think. My wife is responsible for fabricating the vast majority of archemetal parts. We will all be working at her pace and schedule."

That was anything but ideal, but there was nothing they could do about it. The success of this project largely hinged on Gloriana's mood and performance during the upgrade process.

Though his wife was under a lot of pressure right now, she did feel nervous about it. She had studied archetech and worked with it for so many months that she was extremely eager to realize her latest mech design!

Even if her performance disappointed her in the end, she would at least gain crucial experience that she could use to increase the success rate of her next archemech project.

"There is one more thing I have to inform you about." Ves spoke up. "Before we begin the fabrication process, I plan to conduct a ritual. It will be a little weird, but just play along. Who knows whether it might make a difference in the end. Are you okay with this, Tusa?"

"It is fine as long as it isn't too weird. I will not do anything that I personally disagree with. I hope you won't test my tolerance."

"Don't worry. It won't involve any human sacrifice or other lurid stuff. I still have standards."

Ves needed to pay more attention to his optics. With the passing of the sect proposal, Ves needed to make sure to keep his act clean and avoid giving the Red Collective reasons to deprive him of a sect quota.

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