The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

The creation process of the Four Aspects of Lufa revealed a couple of highly impactful truths about Ves.

He spent hours mulling over all of the implications.

It seemed so obvious in hindsight.

According to his existing approach to mech design, he aspired to develop mechs that combined the best of man and machine. Ves believed with all his heart that increasing the synergy between the two was key to achieving a greater level of performance than what mechs could currently achieve!

In order to work towards this ambition, Ves invested his focus beyond the narrow confines of the machine.

Whereas most mech designers mainly paid attention to their mechs in isolation, Ves looked at them as one half of a greater system. Without the explicit inclusion of the mech pilot as a core component, a mech design would never be complete in his eyes!

Ves wondered whether this caused him to develop spiritual attributes that revolved around life over the course of his early career. The more he believed that mechs were alive, the more his spiritual development adjusted to his conviction!

It could also be the case that he already possessed these attributes from the start. The decisions he made in his first years as a mech designer unconsciously steered him into dedicating himself to a design philosophy that made good use of his spiritual inclinations.

"It doesn't really matter whether the chicken or the egg came first."

What truly mattered was that his spiritual attributes and his choice of specialization both contributed to a rather special circumstance.

Despite paying no regard to biomechs throughout his entire career, it turned out that Ves may have a talent in working with them! Better yet, any biomech he might possibly design may very well exceed his work on classical mechs!

Ves could hardly believe that such a coincidence came into being, but the logic behind this theory was sound.

"Man and machine. Organic and inorganic."

What Ves understood as life was mainly centered around its spiritual aspects. To him, life did not necessarily have to come in an organic form.

Incorporeal entities like Qilanxo were very much alive to him despite the passing of her lizard body.

Yet that did not mean that the LRA's biomech designers were all wrong. Each of them assumed that life was intricately tied to organic matter.

Strictly speaking, neither Ves nor people like Dr. Navarro held a monopoly on life and how it tied to mechs. They simply approached the same broad concepts from different directions.

"It's due to this that my affinity with working with organic products is so great!"

He had been working under a handicap all this time. From the moment he began to infuse his mech designs with life, he started a game that was set to an astonishing difficulty level!

If not for the aptitude he inherited from his mother, he should have never been able to make any of his mechs alive!

Yet because he was able to overcome this initial hurdle with unnatural ease, Ves never asked himself whether classical mechs were the best choice for his specialty.

They were all he knew and all he became exposed to. Biomechs were too distant for him. He never encountered a suitable opportunity to dabble with biomechs for much of his career until now.

Though he still hadn't touched a biomech, his forays into making organic totems already provided him with a preview of what might come.

If Ves assumed that the amplification on organic totems remained constant on biomechs, then Ves might possibly be able to design mechs that were at least thrice as strong in the spiritual department!

In fact, the Four Living Aspects of Lufa were supposed to be very crude products. If Ves designed a proper biomech, then the amplification factor could easily reach ten or more!

He could scarcely imagine the results!

How much more unbearable would it be to remain in the presence of an organic version of the Ferocious Piranha? How many more battles would the Fridayman lose if Ves designed an organic variant of the Valkyrie Redeemer?

If Ves began to publish biomech designs based on new and existing mech concepts, the entire galactic rim might break! He would definitely attract a dangerous amount of attention from the MTA if it learned about the abnormally high effectiveness of his organic products!

"Biomechs aren't even the most suitable form of mechs to me! There is another form that resonates even greater with my inclinations!"

That was cyborg mechs. With a domain that revolved around both life and mechs, the most appropriate form of machine was one that incorporated both organic and inorganic parts!

Mechanical components appealed to his traditional impression on mechs. Organic components granted full play to his life orientation!

Cyborg mechs became more and more compelling to him. He felt an increasing attraction to them. Unlike other forms, cyborg mech straddled the line that separated both worlds.

While it was much more difficult to work with a mech that was neither purely metallic nor purely organic, the potential promise it conveyed to him caused his imagination to go wild!

Dozens of innovative and powerful cyborg mech ideas flowed through his mind. From a small but surprisingly untouchable stealth mech to a large and solid heavy knight, Ves became inundated with fantastic designs that he may be capable of realizing!

For some reason, his thoughts strayed back to his Devil Tiger design.

Despite its age, Ves still considered it to be his best work, and with the insights he had just gained, he became more aware of why it always ranked as one of his favorite products.

"Compared to my other mechs, it embodies the concept of a living mech to a much greater degree."

While his Devil Tiger did not incorporate any flesh and bone, it utilized a material that was pretty much the metallic substitute to them. ASMAS mimicked some of the traits of organic materials and granted considerably more possibilities for him to express his design philosophy.

Yet no matter how much nanomaterials were capable of mimicking organic materials, it was still mechanical and metallic in nature. If Ves began to work with actual flesh, then his Life-based applications would be able to find much more fertile ground!

As Ves became entranced by the power he could unleash in the form of cyborg mechs, he came very close to making a life-changing decision for himself.

However, just as Ves was about to whip out his System comm and invest all of his recently-earned DP on a collection of biomech-related Skills, his thoughts in this direction suddenly crashed into a wall.

"No! What am I thinking?! I can't go down this rabbit hole!"

The cause of this interruption was a violent impulse surged from the depths of his mind. His nightmarish entanglement with Dr. Jutland along with all of the other threats he faced that was related to the Five Scrolls Compact came forward again.

The horrible memories culminated in a recollection of that desperate moment when the Temple Protector of the Five Scrolls Compact almost came close to killing Ves, his fellow clan members and his parents!

After learning about all of the atrocities committed by the Compact, Ves constantly resolved to apply his talents in life in a different direction!

He simply could not bear the thought of following in the footsteps of the insane researchers who treated life as expendable resources rather than treasured assets.

The more Ves thought about shifting his research direction towards cyborg mechs, the more resistance he encountered.

The trauma that Ves accumulated over the course of his encounters with the Compact had never gone away. They merely faded to an acceptable level.

It was only now that Ves contemplated a shift towards biotechnology that he encountered a mental block.

Though biotechnology held a lot of promise to Ves, he had witnessed plenty of cases where both Compact and LRA researchers went crazy with the possibilities their knowledge opened up. The secrets of life were so tempting to people that they couldn't help but pursue insane experiments in the name of altering their species or attaining immortality!

Although Ves was attracted by these benefits, he did not wish to descend into total insanity to attain them. He just knew that he wouldn't be able to hold himself back considering his prior track record in exercising restraint.

He knew that he already wasn't exactly very rational most of the time. If he began to transition into a cyborg mech designer, then he had a hunch that he might lose what little rationality that he still managed to retain!

"I can't lose my sanity in the pursuit of greater power!"

Control was much more crucial than raw power. Ketis had always told him that. Even the longest and heaviest greatswords stopped becoming useful if their wielders were unable to swing them anymore.

While Ves recognized that applying his design philosophy to metallic mechs was not a great fit, his current approach was not all bad.

One of the greatest advantages of traditional technology over biotechnology was that the former was more controllable. Machines behaved in predictable ways for the most part while living organisms always exhibited unexpected variations.

Although the price that Ves had to pay was steep, he never had to worry about any of his mechs turning into monsters.

There was also another reason why he valued classical mechs over the alternatives.

"Trying to infuse life into products that are not supposed to bear it is a challenge. The difficulty of succeeding is greater.. but once I do, I will never be limited by the form of mechs or devices!"

Ves felt that if he began to get used to designing biomechs or cyborg mechs, he might grow lazy. He would innovate less and become more dependent on coasting on the power of flesh to make his products strong.

Of course, this was not exactly a valid argument. As long as Ves remained disciplined and adopted the right mindset, his future accomplishments with organic mechs may very well be greater!

Ves became more and more troubled by the dilemma he faced. Should he try to maximize the utilization of his aptitude and his design philosophy, or should he stay true to his current course and pursue his original ambition?

There were good reasons to go with either choice.

At some point, Ves began to recall a fundamental principle.

"Mech designers exist to serve mech pilots."

Reciting these words dispelled much of the entanglement in his mind. His thoughts became clear as ever as he began to look at his choices from a mech designer who wanted to accommodate mech pilots as best as possible.

As a mech designer, obsessing over biotechnology might derail him from trying to provide the best solutions for his customers.

Most mech pilots in the galaxy either abhorred or didn't know what to do with biomechs.

Yet Ves could not ignore the fact that mech pilots also wanted to pilot the strongest and highest-performing mechs. Some might argue that he would be doing his customers a disservice by clinging to his current handicap.

Though this dilemma still existed, Ves felt he had found a way to resolve it to his satisfaction.

"I can still design a cyborg mech even if I don't know anything about biotechnology."

His collaboration with Dr. Swindell already proved that. During the creation process of the living aspects, the biomech technician was responsible for all of the biological work and manipulation. Ves didn't do much, yet he was still able to make use of his specialty to make the organic totems alive!

Perhaps the Four Living Aspects of Lufa could have become even more powerful if he manipulated all of the flesh himself, but working as a supervisor was already enough!

"I don't need to risk my sanity to design a biomech or cyborg mech. I can just collaborate with someone who specializes in them!" Ves grinned!

This way, he got to keep the best of both worlds. His design philosophy would remain pure, but he still had the option of designing organic mechs with exceptional power and capabilities!

"I'll have to pick some up before I leave the LRA. I wonder if I'll be able to gain the services of Master Brixton's protégé…"