The Mech Touch

When Ves and Ketis finally left the System Space, they emerged as different people.

In reality, hardly any time had passed, yet inside this mysterious space, both mech designers looked as if they had attained their own breakthroughs!

The transformation of Ves was by far the most subtle one. His biggest change was that he had shared his greatest secret with one of the mech designers he trusted the most.

Even that had been a tough hurdle for him to overcome as his paranoia still told him that it had been a mistake to open himself up to a new range of vulnerabilities.

The more people learned about the System, the greater the risk of exposure!

This was an inevitable outcome of letting others learn about the System and gain access to its powerful features.

Despite his misgivings, he did not regret his choice. Letting Ketis gain access to the System granted a lot of benefits.

His rationality fully agreed with this course of action, but emotionally he was not quite ready.

He needed more time to process what had happened and accept the current outcome.

Ves would become a better person in the end. This should have happened years ago. The Mech Designer System was too powerful to be used by him alone. He could never utilize it to its full potential. He had been wasting much of its power by preventing others from gaining access to its amazing benefits.

By letting Ketis make use of the System, its effective impact on society doubled. There was now a second mech designer who could translate the benefits of the System into better mech designs, revolutionary technological innovations and an overall enhancement of the strength of red humanity.

This was not a trivial gain. Red humanity was locked in a war for survival, so any change that could increase its chances of winning had to be pursued.

In short, Ves should feel glad that he had made a small sacrifice that delivered a large benefit to society. The best part was that he did not have to do any extra work in order to attain this outcome. Ketis would naturally make good use of the System to improve herself and increase her productivity.

Speaking of Ketis, the woman had emerged from the System Space as a drastically different woman.

She had gained a more solid direction to work towards. Her determination to elevate traditional swordsmanship to heavenly swordsmanship was very noble and promised to make a lot of humans more powerful than before.

At this time, traditional swordsmanship had failed to gain enough relevance in society. Even after the start of the Age of Dawn had reintroduced cultivation to humans, not enough people valued the option of becoming a swordmaster.

It was too difficult to become one. Many Heavensworders tried to break through their entire lives, but failed for one reason or another.

It not only took years of focused training and dedication, but also talent that was not present in every human individual.

Perhaps the Age of Dawn had lowered the requirements a little, but it did not change the fact that it took a lot of commitment and discipline to transform one's willpower.

It would have been worth it to put all of that effort into breaking through if the individual was able to wield a powerful expert mech and become a much more dominant fighter on the battlefield.

However, the awkward part about swordmasters was that they still weren't strong enough to fight in most battles involving mechs and warships!

The inability for swordmasters to match the likes of phase lords and so on practically made it useless for them to exist in the first place. They were as useless and irrelevant as horse cavalry and trebuchets.

This was why Ketis felt it was her calling to change all of that. By upgrading traditional swordsmanship with both qi cultivation and artifact cultivation, she hoped that one day swordmasters could fight against phase lords, expert mechs and other powerful enemies on even ground.

This was an incredibly ambitious goal!

It would likely take at least a decade if not longer for her to produce a working version of heavenly swordsmanship.

However, Ketis remained undeterred. It did not matter how high she set her goal. As long as she was no longer wandering aimlessly through her life as a swordmaster, she was absolutely confident that she would be able to fulfill her ambition one day!

No matter whether she would succeed or fail, her radical change in mentality already caused her to acquire a part of the demeanor of a Saint.

By moving beyond her own concerns and trying to make swordsmanship more helpful to human society at large, she had finally stepped up and begun to think like a magnanimous leader instead of a selfish profiteer.

Was it possible for Ketis to break through as a swordmaster without thinking about making contributions to human society?

Probably.

Would it be harder for Ketis to break through by relying on other means?

Maybe.

No one knew whether Ketis made the optimal choices today. Ves truly could not say for certain whether Ketis had made the right decision for herself.

What if she chooses a path that would inevitably cause her to get sidetracked and waste years of her precious life on useless research?

Ketis would have no choice but to accept this outcome. According to her current attitude, she was more than willing to own up to the consequences of her own decisions.

She would do anything to realize her noble goal. The needs of red humanity were too important compared to her own selfish desire to break through as fast as possible.

This was why Ketis would feel much happier if she was able to raise dozens of swordmasters than break through to the rank of sword saint!

Becoming a powerhouse that was roughly equally as strong as the Heavensword Saint had always been one of her most persistent goals!

Yet if she desired to break through, then she wanted to make sure to do it right.

"Let's talk about my plans for the expeditionary fleet." Ves said as he continued to sit on the chair in the secure chamber as if nothing had happened. "The Red Tide Offensive is not just about defending human space. Protecting our border regions alone will not win us the war. What red humanity must actually be working towards is to temper its soldiers and produce as many breakthroughs as possible. Our clan needs a lot more expert pilots as well as ace pilots if we want to remain strong and relevant in the long run."

Ketis nodded even as she sat down on her own chair while stroking Lucky's back.

The gem cat had already completed another sweep and came to Ketis in order to receive the reward he deserved.

"Meow~"

"Let me get this straight, Ves. You want to prioritize breakthroughs over winning battles or preserving our fighting personnel?"

"Don't sound so accusatory towards me. These are not mutually exclusive goals. We can all get what we want. I just want to make sure that the Larkinson Army has set its priorities straight. Casualties are inevitable. What matters is that we make sure those deaths are not in vain. A higher rate of breakthroughs will make all of the sacrifices worth it. Look, anyone can deploy a lot of standard mechs. Red humanity certainly needs more of them in order to hold back the tide of aliens. We also need our champions, though. They are not only our best counters against the enemy phase leaders, but they are also a very powerful source of morale. If our troops in the frontlines begin to lose their confidence in the war, then that will cause much greater damage to our war effort than losing the 3rd defensive band. Ultimately, the defensive bands only exist to trade space for development time. We need to make use of the time bought by the defenders to create the conditions of a true turnaround and eventual victory."

The two mech designers continued to discuss the strategy that the Larkinson Clan should adopt towards the Red Tide Offensive.

They could have discussed this subject back when they were inside the System Space, but they deliberately saved it for this moment.

Both of them wanted to keep any hint of the existence of the Mech Designer System a secret.

It would be far too suspicious for them to have a highly productive session in a secret space where the progression of time was much faster, only to exit from it and leave the secure chamber when only a minute had passed in reality!

Even though both Ves and Ketis wanted to do nothing more than to return to their own priorities, they patiently spoke to each other as if they intended to talk all night about clan affairs.

In secret, both of them had formed an implicit and explicit understanding about how they should proceed in relation to the Mech Designer System.

Ketis had already promised to prepare for a good moment to 'expose' a powerful new approach towards swordsmanship that just so happened to cut through the walls between dimensions 'by accident'.

Ves meanwhile already thought about who to induct as the third user of the Mech Designer System.

Bringing Ketis into the fold had broken a mental barrier in his mind. Compared to the difficulty of inviting another mech designer for the first time, doing it again was much less agonizing of a decision.

The issue was that Ves could not immediately think of a good candidate that satisfied his requirements as good as Ketis.

He really wanted to bring in his wife, but even he could not deny that Gloriana tended to be a blabbermouth.

Though she was somewhat capable of keeping many secrets, her self-control was so questionable that Ves was not willing to gamble on her discretion on this matter.

This was reason enough for Ves to disqualify her for the time being. Perhaps he might reconsider once she had improved her self-control, but for now he was better off looking elsewhere.

It was a pity that the Journeymen he was most familiar with were still stuck in EdNet training.

The only name that came to mind that was available was Alexa Streon.

She had been with Ves a lot shorter than Ketis, but already went above and beyond to prove her loyalty as well as her integrity.

Though Ves ideally wanted to observe Alexa for a few more years to develop greater certainty about inducing her into the System, he probably couldn't afford to wait this long.

Three mech designers could get a lot more use out of the System than two mech designers.

Ves also believed that Alexa would be able to make much more rapid progress in her research if she gained extensive access to the knowledge contained in the more cultivation-related enlightenment fruits.

It was not impossible for Alexa to make progress without relying on the System. She was certainly smart and talented enough to solve her own problems. Ves merely believed that giving Alexa access would make her a lot more useful and productive in the same span of time.

"Do you want to encourage our expert pilots to be more proactive and take more risks in the hopes of increasing their breakthrough chances?" Ketis asked.

"You can encourage them, but don't push them." Ves replied. "This is their decision to make. Not all of the expert pilots are ready to take the next step. Don't get me wrong. It would be really nice if Jannzi or Joshua broke through within a year, but I can live with a future where that doesn't happen."

"Personally, I think it is better if I give Joshua a push or two. He has been procrastinating for a long time, but he is starting to get close to the point where he has earned the right to become a Saint."

"Well, he's your husband. I will defer to your judgment on this matter."

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