The Mech Touch

The comparisons between the Attributes mentioned in their Statuses already gave Ketis a powerful indication that she was a lot weaker than Ves.

Studying their respective Divine Cores only worsened her evaluation of herself.

The three Divine Cores belonging to Ves were all strong and clearly defined without exception.

While a part of that could be explained by the fact that he was older and had more time to figure out his goals and motivations, he was being a lot more productive than Ketis.

What Ketis found ridiculous was that Ves 'accidentally' managed to become a phase lord somehow and become a lot stronger than herself!

Even though the two had never sparred against each other for real, Ketis could already tell without a shadow of a doubt that she could swing her blade against Ves' massive true body all day and still fail to kill him entirely.

His body was too big!

His skin and hide were too tough!

His bones were practically unbreakable!

No matter what species they originally belonged to, once an individual became a phase lord, their physiques already exceeded their normal boundaries and began to evolve into a more perfect and combat capable body.

This led to the ridiculous result that Ves had become powerful enough to fight against mechs barehanded in spite of the fact that his Divine Core showed that he had no intention of using his massive power in this way!

Although none of this was his fault, Ketis couldn't help but resent Ves a bit for gaining so much strength, only to make it all go to waste.

Perhaps the only benefit to becoming a phase lord for Ves was that he became a lot harder to assassinate.

If Ketis wielded this kind of power, she could do much more with it. At the very least, she could easily deploy into space and fight against other phase lords!

Alas, she was not a phase lord. She was a swordmaster.

A swordmaster was supposed to be strong… once.

Back in a time when human technology was nowhere near as developed and when mechs and large warships did not exist yet, a swordmaster should have been a force to be reckoned with in those primitive days.

Their blades could cut through any armor and they could outfight ten if not a hundred footsoldiers!

However, too much time had passed since then. Human technology progressed rapidly, and frequent conflicts fueled the demand for ever more powerful war weapons.

Swords had long made way for larger, deadlier and more powerful arms. The days when battles between individual troopers could decide the outcome of entire wars had passed a long time ago. Humanity's leap into the stars had definitely shifted the focus to warships and eventually mechs.

How could a sword possibly cut through a mech, let alone a warship?

While Ketis had always known that swordmasters had already become obsolete since the Age of Stars, she still remained upbeat about traditional swordsmanship as it helped her to design better mechs.

However, she never wanted to be 'just a mech designer' like Ves.

She was greedy. She wanted more.

If Ketis was being honest about herself, then she wanted to become a powerful sword wielder as well. Sharpie wouldn't have taken on her own guise if she did not harbor such a personal ambition.

Sharpie's Divine Core exposed the truth that Ketis wanted to become a powerful swordswoman as well.

She thought that no matter how many reminders she received that traditional swordsmanship was out of date and unable to keep up with modern war weapons, she would still be able to make a difference so long as she became a sword god.

It was hard.

It was hard for her to maintain an unflinching belief in the strength of traditional swordsmanship.

The brutal indications she received from the Sacred Temple had inflicted a powerful blow to her confidence.

For all of the blood, sweat and tears she invested into her swordsmanship, her 'Attributes' only slightly exceeded the human norm!

Even if she was able to execute dazzling extraordinary sword techniques, so what?

Her body remained so small and weak that there was a limit to how much damage she could inflict!

At her current level of strength, it might be possible for her to defeat a third-class mech… if it was a landbound machine that was only equipped with melee weapons.

Any mech could easily crush her as long as it was armed with a simple ranged weapon.

Swordmasters had no way of quickly closing the distance to a mech that was located kilometers away.

The mech could leisurely take potshots at a swordmaster that was exposed on open terrain and overwhelm whatever personal energy shields or sword auras that was capable of blocking a couple of shots from a mech at most.

Without the ridiculous amount of amplification and protection from a mech, swordmasters were simply too worthless to be of any value in the battles being waged today.

This was a huge source of discouragement to Ketis!

She couldn't help but question traditional swordsmanship herself.

Was it useful for her to devote so much time and effort to her combat profession?

Was there any value to practicing it if her only gain was to obtain a better understanding on how to design swordsman mechs?

Would the continuous progression of technology cause her swordsmanship to become even less relevant over time?

She didn't like the answers to those questions. Her passion dimmed and her confidence sank to a low point.

Ketis was no longer able to delude herself due to the vagueness and lack of quantifiable data.

The Mech Designer System clearly erected the Sacred Temple to allow for its users to obtain a clear and accurate understanding of their own states. It had no reason to lie or massage the data. At most, the data it presented may be a tad bit inaccurate due to measurement errors, but she did not think that she could take comfort in this excuse.

She knew it in her heart that the Sacred Temple presented an accurate impression of her current state.

Perhaps she wouldn't have felt so bad about herself if she was not able to compare herself to an inhuman freak like Ves, but she still would have felt miserable if his Attributes were closer to the human norm.

This was because her own Attributes remained far too weak!

Ketis did not think that her Strength, Endurance and so on would look that much better if she ever managed to advance to the rank of sword saint.

She had met the Heavensword Saint in person years ago. Even if old Abraham Egenroth only reached this rank due to receiving a forceful boost from the mythical sword that gave him his current title, that did not change the fact that he still became susceptible to many human vulnerabilities!

The Heavensword Saint was actually a special case in more ways. There were many people that believed that he could actually fight an expert mech or even an ace mech to a draw.

However, no one would attribute this miraculous outcome to the sword wielder. Instead, everyone would assume that it was the ridiculously powerful Heavensword that did all of the heavy lifting!

"Wait a minute."

Her eyes suddenly blazed with hope!

She realized that traditional swordsmanship was not completely hopeless!

Ketis should have thought about it before. The Heavensword had already given her a roadmap or blueprint to a newer and better future.

The Heavensword was forged at a time when the Milky Way Galaxy was still filled with the power of heaven.

Now, the only source of heaven that remained was locked inside the Heavensword's dimensional space and maybe other stubborn remnants of the ancient past.

It was due to preserving this tiny slice of 'heaven' that the sword managed to become so ridiculously strong, to the point of being able to teleport across intergalactic distances and back again!

"Traditional swordsmanship is… not as good as I thought it was. It is weak. It has no future. It has fallen behind the times. No one takes swordmasters seriously anymore because any mech or warship could flatten us. I don't blame these people because it is the truth."

It was also because of this that Ketis received the temporary privilege of wielding the Heavensword in battle.

It felt so good to hold so much power. Even though she was too weak and unqualified to use the Heavensword to the fullest extent, what she felt during that exhilarating moment had given her a first-hand glimpse of the awesome power that was available to those that wielded the power of heaven in battle!

The introduction of exotic radiation to the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy had effectively granted humans access to the 'power of heaven' once again, if only on a reduced scale.

Even so, the blooming applications of hyper technology and to a lesser extent E-technology had already shown everyone how much more powerful they could become by wielding the power of E energy!

The most recent lightning tribulation even featured an alien that was most likely native to Messier 87 that mastered a completely different style of swordsmanship!

Instead of trying to polish his willpower, the dual-wielding swordsman evidently dedicated his training to learning how to communicate and leverage the power of ice and fire!

Though Ketis was too busy at the time to think how it was relevant to her own swordsmanship, now this alien example further cemented her new resolve.

"You've been quiet for these past few minutes. What is the matter, Ketis?"

The swordmaster faced Ves with renewed fire and determination. "I was wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"Traditional swordsmanship is… not as good as I thought it was. It is weak. It has no future. It has fallen behind the times. No one takes swordmasters seriously anymore because any mech or warship could flatten us. I don't blame these people because it is the truth."

"Are you… questioning your path?"

She knew him too well.

"Perhaps you are right. What are you going to do about it, then?"

"I am." Ketis admitted. "And as far as I was concerned, this moment was long overdue. It is only by taking a step back and admitting that what I have been pursuing for many years is flawed that I am ready to take corrective actions. The harsh truth that I have been trying to avoid all of the time is that traditional swordsmanship in its current form sucks! Don't lie to me and say that it is not that bad. You know it is true."

She knew him too well.

"Perhaps you are right. What are you going to do about it, then?"

"Isn't the answer obvious? I am going to improve it and bring it up to modern standards! I will reform whatever is necessary to build a vastly stronger foundation that fully takes advantage of the conditions of the current era. We live in the Age of Dawn. Mechs no longer have an absolute claim of dominance anymore. If mechs can leverage the power of hyper technology to make themselves stronger, then so can swordmasters!"

"All of that sounds plausible, but there are huge differences between a human-sized sword and a multi-ton mech. The latter is always able to provide a much stronger degree of amplification. You can't make up for this enormous gap."

Ketis shook her head. "I think you are wrong! Anything is possible! Have you forgotten about the Heavensword? It possesses an entire pocket space that is filled with miraculous energies! This is at least one concrete example on how swordmasters can circumvent the limitations of their limited human physiques. As long as they are equipped with swords that possess their own pockets of heavens in them, they can wield power far in excess of ordinary swordmasters!"

Her claim sounded so outrageous that Ves didn't know what to say. He then thought about it further and realized that his former student may actually have a point.

The Heavensword was a unique relic that could have only been made by a True God-level craftsman. There was no way a Journeyman like Ketis could forge such a transcendent artifact with her current capabilities.

However, if she utilized the advantages of the Mech Designer System to acquire relevant Skills and production equipment, it may be possible for her to one day forge a blade that possessed 0.1 percent of the power of the Heavensword!

The enormous difference in power made the weaker sword sound pathetic, but it already represented a huge breakthrough if Ketis managed to forge such a weapon!

As long as a decent swordmaster was able to wield such a weapon, it was not impossible for such a figure to fend off an expert mech under limited circumstances!

If Ketis kept improving her craft, she would eventually be able to forge much more powerful blades!

If she was able to systemize her sword forging methods and teach her craft to other traditional blacksmiths, then they may actually be able to spark the revival of swordmasters throughout human society!

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