The Mech Touch

It took a while for Casella to summarize the extensive changes and improvements to her powers and abilities as an ace pilot.

It didn't help that she was much different from Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson, who was the most familiar ace pilot to the Larkinson Clan.

Unlike Tusa who was able to make his mech fly faster, hit harder, resist a lot more attacks and completely bypass any form of energy defenses, Casella's personal combat capabilities did not improve to such an exaggerated extent.

"I don't have a conventional Saint Kingdom." She explained to Ves. "My resonance shield has remained the same in essence. It has only become more powerful because my resonance strength has practically doubled. Instead, my Command Field seemed to have become my Saint Kingdom. This is a fitting outcome, because the range of my Command Field is countless times better than any conventional Saint Kingdom. It also imposes a permanent limitation on me, because a Command Field doesn't allow me to exert my willpower in a highly concentrated manner."

The spiritual manifestation of Ves nodded in understanding. "I get it. The inverse-square law still applies in this mystical phenomenon. It is logical to assume that your massive and stretched-out Command Field can only enable you to apply your power to a limited degree. You are basically trading range and quantity for quality. What about your ability to empower a limited amount of mechs to the standards of an expert mech? Can you only do that to nearby mechs, or can you bestow the same degree of power at the edge of your Command Field?"

"I can do it, but I can already tell it will be more strenuous to me. My intuition tells me… I will only be able to super-empower less than half of the mechs if I do so at closer ranges. It is best to reserve this new ability to ranged mechs if this is the case, though I think there is still value in bestowing this power to more distant melee mechs at key moments."

The Larkinson Army could accomplish a lot if the Saint Commander persistently super-empowered as many Transcendent Punishers as possible, but that would make other mech pilots jealous and resentful towards the lucky Ylvainans.

Besides, as awe-inspiring as the firepower of expert mech-level heavy artillery mechs may be, other mechs could perform other amazing feats. Different jobs required different tools.

Ves and Casella talked a bit more about the regular Commandeering process for a few minutes.

This was still the Saint Commander's mainstay ability and one that could comprehensively turn a regular mech force into an elite mech force.

What amazed both of them was the quantity of mechs and mech pilots that could be empowered at the same time. Casella's multi-tasking ability had reached stupendous proportions.

"I think I inherited a part of Titania's power during my breakthrough." Casella speculated. "Back during my forced resonance state, I noticed that I was executing tricks that I previously delegated to the design spirit of the Minerva. It is as if I have learned some of Titania's methods and integrated it into my own power."

That sounded incredibly interesting to Ves. It actually matched up to what happened to Saint Tusa to an extent.

Knowing that the ace pilots could pick up the specializations of design spirits made it a lot easier to predict their future ability set once more expert pilots broke through in the future.

For example, the Riot, which most people considered to be an offensive mech, actually possessed a defensive design spirit in the form of Qilanxo!

Once Venerable Orfan broke through, there was a considerable chance that she would gain an ability that enabled her to resist more blows as opposed to strengthening her own attacks.

Whether this was good or bad, Ves couldn't say for sure. This was highly personal to the pilots in question.

Ves figured that these sorts of advancements were still decided by the conscious and subconscious desires of the pilots in question.

It was just that the expert pilots worked with the design spirits for so long that they had taken a liking for the abilities of the latter. It was natural for the former to gain the ability to emulate the latter's advantages if that was the case.

"So your regular Commandeering ability excels in quantity?"

Casella nodded. "Yes. That is the distinct impression that I have received. I am not too familiar with the circumstances of other command ace pilots, but I doubt that their Command Fields or equivalents are as large as mine. I cannot say for certain, but I think that as long as I develop my powers in my current direction, the range of my Command Field will be able to encompass a light-hour, if not several light-hours."

That sounded extremely impressive! The God Kingdoms of most god pilots could only encompass a typical terrestrial planet and maybe a few moons at most. To be able to gain widespread awareness of everything in a space that could encompass entire suns and more was an amazing strategic advantage!

At the very least, no enemy stealth vessel or other hidden surprises could remain undetected within the Saint Commander's enormous Command Field!

Of course, conventional God Kingdoms were easily able to utterly defeat most enemy forces within their sphere of influence.

Casella's much more dispersed Command Field did not possess such exaggerated capabilities.

"I know that your Command Field already possesses two broad advantages. On the one hand, you can connect to different people and machines and essentially command and coordinate them in a highly unified manner. On the other hand, you can also empower mechs with your true resonance, thereby elevating their raw performance so that they can fight like quasi-expert mechs if not greater. Which of these strengths do you favor more? Are you developing towards the Archistrategos or the Technomancer?"

These were the titles of the two most iconic command-oriented god pilots of the human race.

Sure, there was also the Army of One, but every mech commander quietly considered him to be a heretic due to his complete refusal to command anything that was manned by humans.

The Archistrategos and the Technomancer were much more representative of the apex of what mech commanders could accomplish.

They had become fading names in the Red Ocean, but still remained widely known and revered in the Milky Way where they still resided.

Of the two, the Archistrategos was the oldest and most respected commander god pilot. He was only a bit older than the Age of Mechs, and pioneered the command specialization among high-ranking mech pilots. His lessons paved the way for many other talented mech pilots that possessed similar ambitions.

The most noteworthy strength of the Archistrategos was his range. It was ridiculously large. The god pilot was already over four centuries old, so he had plenty of time to expand his range of control, but most people assumed that it could encompass pretty much an entire star system if his god mech was positioned close to the center!

Among other command god pilots, the Archistrategos was actually not able to impart huge amounts of power into any single subject.

Instead, he went all-in on maximizing his awareness and coordination capabilities.

He was the most perfect system-wide scanner to exist. Almost nothing could escape his notice. He could even track all of the individual specks of space dust that was soaring through deep space in an entire star system!

Whatever Saint Commander Casella could track in her own Command Field, the Archistrategos was able to glean a lot more information in a much wider range!

It was impossible for any enemies that were present in the same star system to hold many secrets against such a ridiculous god pilot.

Combined with an ability to perfect command and coordinate the actions and maneuvers of any friendly or neutral assets ranging from infantry soldiers, armed shuttles, mechs, warships, fixed defenses and even monstrously large superweapons, the Archistrategos was able to control all of them to ensure they fought at the highest degree of efficiency!

Suffice to say, the forces under the command of the Archistrategos could easily defeat ten times if not a hundred times their number due to the difference he made, and that was without considering his ability to modestly empower all of those assets with his willpower!

The Technomancer rose up later, and developed her command specialization in a different direction.

As her title suggested, the Technomancer very much fixated on machines. Unlike the Army of One, she did not have an aversion to manned or piloted craft, so she was readily able to empower mechs, warships, armed installations and more within her God Kingdom.

Her biggest limitation was that her God Kingdom did not work at all with organic machines, or at least that was what everyone assumed.

Saint Commander Casella's feat of turning 35 Transcendent Punisher Mark III into temporary pseudo-expert mechs was rather impressive, but the Technomancer could do much more back when she was just a junior ace pilot!

Different from the Archistrategos, the Technomancer favored quality over quantity. It was well known that the range of her God Kingdom was a fraction of her older peer, but that also made it a lot more concentrated.

The Technomancer excelled at turning any crap machine into a peerless fighting monster. Her ability to empower any sort of machine to a ridiculous degree.

Saint Commander Casella's feat of turning 35 Transcendent Punisher Mark III into temporary pseudo-expert mechs was rather impressive, but the Technomancer could do much more back when she was just a junior ace pilot!

What really caused the Technomancer to gain a lot of respect was that her method of empowerment worked differently. There was a temporary component that disappeared when she withdrew her willpower, but there was also a permanent component that caused some of the mysterious upgrades to remain fixed!

In other words, as long as the Technomancer empowered any machine for a certain duration, it would undergo a slow and permanent mutation that permanently made it stronger and better in many ways!

What was strange was that the Technomancer did not fly around and impart her permanent empowerment effect on as many machines as possible.

There were either limitations to this ability or other people were reluctant to accept this gift. One of the most credible rumors that Ves heard on the galactic net was that any machine that was deeply touched by the Technomancer became hers forever. They would always obey her command over others without any exception!

In any case, the mech community usually tended to assume that the Archistrategos and the Technomancer occupied the opposite ends of a spectrum. It was easy to position most other command-oriented mech pilots between the poles.

When Ves mentioned the two famous god pilots to Casella, she had to think seriously where she stood in relation to these two extremes.

"My development is… strange." She said. "I would say that I am currently good at both. I suspect that I am stronger than a typical command ace pilot for reasons unknown to me. I don't occupy the middle of the spectrum. I occupy two different positions closer to the opposing poles at the same time."

That sounded weird. "Are you sure about that? Conservation of energy still applies to ace pilots for the most part. Each of you has a limited reservoir of transcendent energies that you can allocate in different ways. For you to be able to become good at two different sub-specializations sounds as if you are positioned right in the middle as opposed to what you have said. Maybe your judgment is off because you have never compared yourself to another mech commander at the ace pilot level."

Casella firmly shook his head. "I am not exaggerating or misjudging this. I have a fairly clear understanding of my own state. I do not think I have made any major compromises. I am becoming increasingly more certain that I have somehow gained the best of both worlds, or at least at this early junction. It is possible that this advantage will steadily diminish as my resonance strength grows, but for now I suspect that I can replicate at least a part of the performance of the Antistrategos and the Technomancer when they had just attained sainthood."

While all of this sounded impressive, Ves still looked confused. Where did Casella get all of her additional power from? Energy did not come from nowhere! There had to be a logical explanation for this! Was it her companion spirit? Was it the design spirit of her expert mech? Or was it her living mech?

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