The Mech Touch

Back in the expeditionary fleet, Venerable Jannzi Larkinson looked increasingly more conflicted as Ves paraded her traumatic story to all of red humanity. She crossed her arms and fidgeted in her seat as her eccentric cousin continued to publicize details that she would rather keep under wraps.

"Are you okay, Jannzi?" Venerable Joshua asked with concern. "Ves is airing your story to everyone"

Their relationship with each other may have ended a long time ago, but that did not stop Joshua from caring about his ex-girlfriend's wellbeing.

"I am fine." She said, though her shaking voice made it soon she was anything but okay. "Truly. I expected this to happen. Ves came up to me and asked for permission to do this in advance. As much as I feel embarrassed to publicize my close relationships with the Shield of Samar and the Bastion, I ultimately thought that I shouldn't feel ashamed for feeling this way. Instead, I want to serve as a role model to others and show that forming a permanent relationship with another mech is fantastic."

The other expert pilots sitting around accepted this story. Perhaps Jannzi may have underestimated the impact that this would have on her psyche, but she had multiple reasons to allow this to happen.

"Are you thinking about getting into politics?" Venerable Dise guessed. "I just figured out that presenting your name and story to everyone is a great way to kickstart your career in public service."

Jannzi smirked back. "Maybe. I do not intend to burden myself with greater

Responsibilities before I have advanced to ace pilot, but once I have become as strong as Tusa, who knows. I want to make a much greater difference to the clan and to the rest of our society than now. Ves is rapidly being groomed to take charge, but I do not think it is entirely wise to let him run the Red Collective. He needs to be confronted by opposition who actually knows him and understands how he thinks. I am not claiming that I can be a part of that effort, but if the opportunity arises....I will not refuse the offer."

Everyone in the pilot lounge fell silent for a moment.

"You do know that you still need to rely on Ves to update your Bastion, right? Doesn't it seem counterproductive for you to push his buttons while also begging him to improve your living mech?"

Jannzi smiled and shook her head. "Ves will not let his feelings get in the way of his professionalism. That is one trait that. I admire about him. He takes his responsibilities as a mech designer seriously."

While Jannzi dreamed about what she might be doing in the future, Ves continued with his presentation back on La Reina.

Everyone stared at the bold letters that spelled out the initial name of the system that led to this presentation.

"I imagine that you are confused about what 'Empowered Blood Sharing System' exactly means." Ves said with a smile. "It is not that complicated, actually. It is quite a literal description of what I have done to revive and evolve the intimate relationship between Venerable Jannzi and her living mech."

The main projection changed to show the Bastion, before it gradually shifted into a semi-transparent image that showed a part of its interior architecture.

Of course, Ves was not stupid enough to publicize the sensitive and confidential details of a high-end asset of the Larkinson Clan to the public. He had made sure to simplify, erase and obscure a lot of important design elements.

What he truly wanted to illustrate with this image was the first implementation of the Empowered Blood Sharing System.

"After getting struck by inspiration, I combined my personal understanding of living mechs, the unique bond that Venerable Jannzi shared with her previous expert mech and my understanding of the extraordinary properties of human blood to form a biomechanical blood circulation system that runs throughout the interior of the mech is a seemingly unexplainable fashion."

Many mech designers and engineers struggled to understand what they were seeing. The projection may have obscured many details about the design of the Bastion, but it displayed the actual Empowered Blood Sharing System in perfect clarity.

Yet what they saw still did not conform to any existing theoretical frameworks! Even the biotech experts couldn't make heads or tails out of this odd system. There was no functional purpose to allowing human blood to touch different components! "Confused?" Ves grinned. "That is because the purely material components of the Empowered Blood Sharing System only tells half of the story. The real magic takes place in a different realm. This is not an application of hyper technology. It is an application of E-technology years before the start of the Age of Dawn. In cultivation science, blood is far more than a liquid that circulates oxygen and other nutrients from one part of the body to another. It carried a core part of our spirit and vitality. This is why ancient cultivators liked to use blood to conduct all kinds of gruesome rituals and ceremonies." That caused parts of his audience to immediately feel more repelled at what Ves had created. All of this was beginning to sound icky!

"Don't worry." Ves attempted to reassure the more sensitive members of his audience, with mixed success. "Blood is an ingredient. It can be used for both good and ill. I like to think that my application of the Empowered Blood Sharing System falls in the former category. What you need to know is that I succeeded in what I have set out to do. When Venerable Jannzi interfaced with the Bastion for the first time, she successfully established an intimate connection with her new living mech that exists beyond the man-machine connection. Since her blood combined with cloned blood based on her DNA forms the bridge of this novel connection, I decided to call it the Blood Pact. Both pilot and living mech have formed a sacred pact to work side by side to accomplish their common goals. This bond is as strong as the promise of a high-ranking mech pilot."

As Ves spoke, a simulation of a pilot entered the cockpit and interfaced with the Bastion.

Though Ves had heavily processed the visuals, people could still see zoomed-in clips of needles poking through Jannzi's piloting suit and beginning to connect her blood circulation with that of her living mech!

Not everyone could observe this process taking place without feeling disgusted or horrified. Stuff like this usually happened in horror dramas where the supernatural had overtaken a society of mechs!

Still, what compelled people to pay attention was the visualization of the two bonds that tied the mech pilot and living mech together.

"These two glowing lines symbolically represent the simultaneous connections that Jannzi maintains with her Bastion when she is piloting her living mech. Ves said in a factual tone. "The bright white line stands for the man-machine connection that is established through the old and familiar neural interface. The bright red line represents the new Blood Pact formed between the two. Normally, both are active at the same time whenever Venerable Jannzi pilots her Bastion."

The critical moment of his presentation had arrived. Ves deliberately paused to increase the tension. His grin grew wider as he leaned forward.

"Now, when I spontaneously came up with the Empowered Blood Sharing System, I never had a complete grasp of what it was capable of. It was only when Venerable Jannzi experienced its effects for herself that she came up to me to share a shocking theory. Her Blood Pact bound her so tightly to the Bastion that she guessed that she could rely on it to effectively control her own living mech!"

Many people did not fully comprehend his shocking revelation. They already started to get lost when Ves started to ramble about blood, and now he had made a claim that was so shocking that they literally could not bring themselves to believe it was true! Ves continued to press forward. "In order to test her hypothesis, we conducted secret experiments where she attempted to pilot her Bastion with her Empowered Blood Sharing System active but her neural interface offline. The results shocked us both. It worked! She actually managed to pilot her Bastion almost as smoothly as if she was controlling it through a neural interface! I paid close attention to the readings and I am absolutely certain that I cut her off from the neural interface. These are the very first instances where a mech pilot is effectively able to control her mech through a system that does not rely on connecting the human brain to a pure machine!" The crowd started to generate a lot of gasps and other noise, but Ves knew that this would not be convincing enough to win over the skeptics.

"I broke through the rank of Senior Mech Designer after I comprehended the amazing

Potential and implications of my accidental invention." Ves said with a smile. "I decided right then and there that I will attempt to realize my design philosophy by fleshing out this new control system and turning it into a mature design application that is suitable for mass adoption. In the months that followed, I continued to theorize and experiment. with my new invention. I soon decided to refer to it as the Carmine System to make it

Easier for everyone."

That added a lot more credibility to Ves' outlandish statements. It was not a coincidence that the Red Association maintained a heavy presence during this product reveal. Ves was able to take advantage of their stellar credibility to make his story believable!

"I continued to explore this fantastic new design application. After months of design work, I applied a slightly more refined application of my Carmine System to a high-tier expert mech called the Blood Star Mark II"

The projection displayed a substantially different expert space knight. Unlike the Bastion, the Blood Star Mark II possessed a clear offensive focus.

"Those who took the initiative to investigate the background of this expert mech should already notice a glaring discrepancy. The pilot, my grandfather, was a former expert pilot who sustained serious brain damage during a war in the previous age. This crippling injury has devastated him. He lost the ability to interface with his expert mech or any other mech. This resulted in a cascade of failures as his inability to pilot mechs means that he cannot fulfill his promises that he has made as a loyal soldier of the Bright. Republic. Most of you should be aware of the consequences of that. My grandfather became crippled and had no choice to retire from service... until I completed the Blood

Star Mark II."

The projection changed to show a partial cross-section of the cockpit.

"As you can see, the Blood Star Mark II is special in that it does not come with a neural interface at all. I did not bother to include it because I bet that my grandfather can regain his willpower by interfacing with his new expert mech with the Carmine System. Since the records show that my grandfather has since regained his power as an expert pilot and fought in many battles at the frontlines, my attempts have clearly succeeded." Many people started to breathe heavier and faster. The Carmine System sounded more and more promising!

"Now, I am cognizant that two success cases does not necessarily prove the value of the Carmine System to the general audience. What if it only works for high-ranking mech pilots? This is where the Red Association has proven to be helpful. In order to verify that my Carmine System can also benefit other people, the mechers have conducted many secret tests with prototype Carmine mechs. The results that I am about to show you may be shocking to the extreme, but the mechers completely stand by their studies." Everyone grew silent as they did not want to miss a word of what Ves would say next! "I don't think many of you would like to read through thousands of pages of dense and boring academic texts, so let me summarize the results. The Blood Pact created with

The help of the Carmine System has proven to be an effective alternate control system for mechs. Low-ranking mech pilots can not only use it to control their mechs by itself, but can also combine it with the man-machine connection generated by the neural interface to raise their effective genetic aptitude, up to a limit."

That certainly aroused the attention of existing mech pilots, but Ves had more to say.

"What is more interesting is when we put norms with no history of mech piloting in the cockpits of the prototype mechs. When they successfully forge their Blood Pacts with their lifelong bound Carmine mechs, they have proven to be able to control their mechs in very similar ways, though with much less skill due to their lack of professional piloting

Training."

Ves had dumped such a shocking revelation to his massive audience that the truth of his

Words had yet to sink into their minds!

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