The Mech Touch

Chapter 6091 Alien Bioconstruct Developer

Ves and Alexa continued to go over the research reports on the Emperor Tree's wooden mechs. They talked about all kinds of fascinating observations about these quaint and interesting constructs.

The pair of mech designers also spent their time on examining the Elegant Rage before partially disassembling the machine.

It was only when Ves was able to remove a few exterior plating and take a good look at the interior for him to understand how much of a patchwork the Elegant Rage had become!

It was as if the Elegant Rage partially fused with a wooden mech. A lot of requirements that used to be fulfilled by metallic parts were suddenly being fulfilled by wooden parts.

For example, Ves saw entire banks of energy cells being replaced by wooden equivalents. Each of these wooden cells were able to reach remarkably high energy densities given their limited volume and relatively average material compositions. The tree sap that ran through them had a large part to do with their excellent performance. The Elegant Rage was filled with many more small wooden wonders. There were parts that replaced anything from artificial musculature to gyroscopes.

"Many of these parts remind me of biomech design." Ves remarked. "I don't know whether it is because of convergent design by the Emperor Tree or other reasons, but there are plenty of design choices that makes me think that many different biomech designers have contributed to this crazy wave of upgrades and modification. Everything works so well despite not looking like it makes sense. I am rather amazed at how efficient the Elegant Rage is able to accommodate these wooden parts and tree sap circulatory system. The utilization of capacity is so good that it is as if Gloriana had made a pass at the living mech's design."

The more Ves and Alexa examined the design, the more mysteries they uncovered.

However, their comprehension of how a mech like the Elegant Rage could possibly work was limited by their limited expertise on biotechnology.

Alexa had dabbled in a few biotechnology and biomech design courses, but she did not put much emphasis on this niche specialization back when she was a mech design student. She had already decided to commit to designing conventional mechs as opposed to anything exotic like smart metal mechs or biomechs.

As for Ves, he was able to gain a more thorough understanding of how the Elegant Rage worked by drawing upon multiple sources of expertise. His understanding of spiritual engineering, Blinky's excellent perception, the basic biotech theories he learned in the past along with the occult knowledge provided by the Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Growth Manual Enlightenment Fruit all allowed him to make a number of accurate inferences on the mechanisms of the Elegant Rage.

Unfortunately, all of it was a bit too scattered to constitute a coherent system. The Elegant Rage possessed much greater depth that Ves was unable to penetrate for the time being.

It appeared that he wouldn't be able to develop a working theoretical framework of Woodsap mechs by performing a cursory examination of the current form of the Elegant Rage.

"This mech is too alien." Alexa commented. "There are too many design principles and mechanisms that fall outside of my areas of expertise. I fear that only a dedicated biomech designer can decipher the Elegant Rage's greater secrets, and that individual must possess a good understanding of exoflora biology as well. There are not many professionals who are well-versed in both fields."

She made a good point. Biomech designers were relatively scarce, especially in the Red Ocean.

A lot of biomech designers mainly studied how to develop organic mechs made of exobeast cells.

In other words, their principal building blocks consisted of metal-reinforced flesh and bones.

It was highly unusual to base mechs out of plant cells, even if they were reinforced with powerful metallic exotics.

A lot of biomech designs were directly inspired by the biologies of powerful exobeasts found in the wild.

It was a lot easier for biomech designers to plagiarize the best results of natural selection than to invent a new biomech framework from scratch.

Before the Age of Dawn, powerful exobeasts were not particularly strong, but they were anything but rare.

However, there was no such thing as a powerful exoplant. Even if there were plenty of alien trees that grew big and old, they always remained firmly rooted to their original locations. They never felt any pressure to evolve the ability to become more flexible and move around.

If a massive environmental crisis ever occurred that deteriorated the living spaces of these exoplants, it was already too late for them. There was no way they could evolve fast enough to outrun disasters that swept up their entire surroundings!

The Age of Dawn permanently changed these rules.

The influx of exotic radiation and the rapid mutation of many lucky organisms led to the rise of rapid self-evolving mutated plants and even more powerful calamity plants.

In just a couple of months or years, these formerly humble organisms completely transformed into strong and intelligent predators!

It was not unheard of to encounter reports of moving trees on the galactic net. Although the Emperor Tree had yet to demonstrate this capability, the development of remarkably fast and mobile wooden mechs showed that it was on the right track.

In other words, the calamity plant had already started to activate and climb its way up this technology tree.

Ves continued to fall into thought as he looked at the many mysterious wooden components that defied his understanding.

"Mrow."

Even Blinky maintained a blank expression as his sharp spiritual senses failed to figure out how the absorption and circulation of wood energy empowered the mutated mech.

Alexa grew a little suspicious when she cast her gaze at her mentor.

"What are you thinking, sir? You look as if you are contemplating a number of questionable ideas."

He chuckled at that. "Your familiarity with my habits are growing with each passing day. How come I have become so easy to read all of a sudden?"

"I think I have begun to understand how you can produce so many radical and successful innovations over the years. Your risk tolerance is higher than every other mech designer that I know of. You are also much more impulsive. Many mech designers would at least conduct feasibility studies and other forms of analysis before following up on their whims. You just take action even if you do not have any concrete proof that your ideas will lead to the desired results."

Ves smiled back at her. "If there is anything I have learned in our industry, it is that every mech designer is capable of doing a lot more than their records suggest. Too many of my colleagues are restraining themselves because they are restricted by their jobs, their employers, lack of resources, lack of time and lack of courage. I don't blame them for being cautious. Nobody wants to dedicate years of research into a project that ended up hopeless from the beginning. However, I think it is still better to actually do something than keep your most interesting ideas in your mind."

"That is easier said than done, sir. Not everyone is able to go independent and steadily work your way up by achieving continual successes over the years. Your career trajectory is impossible to replicate by any other third-class mech designer."

She was right. Perhaps Ves was being too unrealistic about this subject.

"Let's get back to the original subject matter." He said. "You are correct that I have a few unusual ideas in mind. I have used my cranial implant to skim through the LBI's research reports that you have transferred to me. The samples that the ill-fated strike force has collected during the last mission indicate that the calamity plant has made progress into developing a wood-based framework of mech-like constructs. However, its progress is still incomplete."

"That is true, though the existence of the much more superior variant of purple wooden constructs indicates that the Emperor Tree has already reached the second generation of its ambitious project." Alexa reminded Ves.

It was a pity that the strike force was unable to retrieve any intact purple wooden mechs. It had been more important to drag Lanie and Taon out of the danger zone.

"That is why I am thinking about delaying the upcoming offensive operation on the Emperor Tree. Sure, it is powerful and definitely poses a threat against the Larkinsons stationed on the surface of Reticula Corein V. However, if you think about it, the calamity plant is a remarkably competent alien bioconstruct developer. It is a waste to end its life when it can still make a lot of progress in developing stronger and more efficient iterations of wooden mechs! Just imagine the Emperor Tree's fourth or fifth generation of organic products. These advanced wooden constructs may actually succeed in matching the raw power of our expert mechs!"

Alexa was completely taken aback by his radical idea!

"Your clansmen will not like it, sir. They will hate your plan and resent you for stopping them from destroying the enemy that has ruined two of our up-and-coming champions. From what I have heard, Swordmaster Ketis and the other members of Task Force Solus are out for blood. They want to tear down the Emperor Tree and burn down as much of its enormous wooden body as possible. Venerable Isobel Kotin and the Promethea should have already arrived in preparation for the upcoming strike."

Ves was not ignorant of how much the Larkinsons have come to loathe the Emperor Tree. He resented it as well. He was of two minds on this issue.

On the one hand, he could force the task force to keep the Emperor Tree around for a longer time in the hopes of letting it advance its organic R&D activities.

Though the rewards would definitely be great, the cost would also be heavy. Ves would have to piss off a lot of clansmen while also buying the frighteningly intelligent and adaptive calamity plant a lot of time to grow stronger!

On the other hand, striking at the Emperor Tree sooner rather than later would nip its threat in the bud, both literally and figuratively. It would definitely minimize the chance of accidents and give Chimera Base a lot of breathing space to develop in peace.

Aside from that, the sooner the Larkinsons got rid of the Emperor Tree, the sooner they could start a much larger Solus Gas harvesting operation at a much larger vent.

Since Chimera Base was made up of a lot of modular and semi-modular building parts, it should be easy enough for the task force to disassemble every structure and reassemble them at the Emperor Tree's former seat of power.

Ves had already taken note of the remarkable properties of Solus Gas. Its value was far higher than he initially suspected. Its ability to function like a gaseous form of B-stone not only turned it into an effective counter against living mechs, but also allowed the Larkinsons to counter similar threats in the future!

While Solus Gas could not be used to counter powerful calamity beasts and calamity plants that had evolved alongside this mysterious exotic gas, it was bound to be a lot more effective against powerful beasts that never got into contact with it before!

Ves also saw huge potential in employing it on a wider scale against enemies that were making increasingly more extensive use of hyper technology.

"I need to consider this matter further." He said. "In any case, I don't think I can make much progress in understanding how the Elegant Rage works. That is not good news because I don't think I will be able to convert it into the mech that I have promised to deliver to Venerable Lanie. There are two possible ways I can go forward with this. The easiest solution would be to bring in an external consultant who knows a lot about exoplants. The more difficult one is for me to absorb a lot of knowledge about this subject matter. Which one should I pursue?"

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