The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5963 Destructive Phasing

Ves ended his call shortly after he promised to add this exceptionally powerful capability to the Dark Zephyr.

He did not make this promise lightly. He might not be a willpower cultivator, but he still valued his integrity as a mech designer. Ves wanted to make a serious commitment to Venerable Tusa in order to soothe the expert pilot's fears about subsequent delays and scrapping of features.

Managing relationships with high-value clients was part of a mech designer's job. Tusa had clearly been more badly affected by all of the delays than normal. Ves felt responsible for this, so he deliberately subjected himself to a hard deadline to ensure he went all-out into elevating the combat power of the Dark Zephyr.

Of course, the consequences of failure were extremely serious. An irreparable break would form in the relationship between Ves and Tusa. Ves would also have to bear the stain on his professional career for the rest of his life.

It was a lot safer if he kept everything vague and expressed a lot of uncertainty.

Ves did not want to do that. It was a cowardly approach that was helpful in avoiding responsibility, but also pushed him into becoming more complacent.

So long as Ves had sufficient confidence in his ability to complete the job, he believed it was best to be bold and make sure he tried his best!

Even if he fell a little short of his goals, he could at least be satisfied that he had done his absolute best in fulfilling the demands of his client.

Ves was completely satisfied with how he handled his discussion with Tusa.

That was not necessarily the case for other people. When he dropped by the design lab to inform his wife of this latest development, she almost dropped from her seat!

"WHAT?!"

Alexandria reacted with just as much shock!

"Maaw!?"

The news dropped so hard that the Queen Cat interrupted her design network. Gloriana quickly lost her spiritual connection to Hekkel. Her Archglove began to generate friction sounds as she pressed her covered fingers together.

The enslaved arche engineer cowered and quickly took a few steps back in order to distance himself from his Glorious Queen's wrath.

Surprisingly enough, Gloriana did not blow up and unleash a full volume tirade at Ves!

He expected this to happen and had psychologically prepared for this in advance.

Gloriana would grow upset that Ves had introduced a significant deviation from the current design plan and tell him that he was being absolutely stupid for listening to his impulses.

She would eventually cool down and reluctantly accept that Ves would have his way, though she certainly would not sound pleased by this course of events.

Once they completed the project and Ves managed to prove that his inspired idea worked out, Gloriana would forget that she ever objected to Ves in the first place and just accept that this additional change was part of her original master plan all along.

Ves and his wife had repeated this cycle so often that he expected that he would go through the motions for the umpteenth time.

Instead, her justified anger made way for acceptance.

Yes, acceptance.

"You… you're okay with my proposal?"

"Maaw." Alexandria calmly replied.

"I am." Gloriana said. "Do not get me wrong. I am displeased at having to revise our planning and change our assignments. You could have explored this feature in a much earlier phase of our upgrade project. Trying to tack it on midway is not supposed to happen."

"You're wrong, Gloriana. The Ves before he went on his business trip wouldn't have gained the confidence to realize this powerful new ability. The Ves that came back from the Dominion of Man is a lot better. I have gained a lot of new capabilities, and this is just right as my first true attempt at harnessing one of my newfound powers."

"You certainly do not lack confidence. I have learned that you usually end up reaching your goal when that is the case. You have proven yourself enough times to earn the benefit of the doubt from me. I do not have a single clue how you can enable Venerable Tusa and the Dark Zephyr to rapidly execute the six steps that you have outlined, but I do not dare to underestimate you again. If you could do the impossible by transforming the Dominion of Man into a living dreadnought, then you should probably be able to improve the Dark Zephyr's offensive power by a large extent."

Though this conversation did not unfold as he anticipated, this was not a bad outcome. Ves smiled and moved forward in order to embrace her in a heartfelt hug.

"Thank you for trusting me. I will do my best not to fail or delay the completion of the Dark Zephyr Project. I will even set aside my other duties if I need to invest more time than usual."

Now that the anticipated conflict did not occur, Ves and Gloriana sat down and began to revise their current design.

The two worked to explore their options and identify the most suitable darkness-attributed hyper materials to integrate in the mech design.

"The so-called destructive phasing technique of yours has never been created before." Gloriana said with a frown as she looked at a dozen different screens. Each of them was connected to a different database. "The closest equivalent I can find is references to 'shadow missiles' that are able to phase far deeper into the hulls of alien warships. The difference is that these missiles were never designed to exit their targets."

Ves turned on his seat and glanced at the projection that showed a recording of the missiles in action.

"It's not the same." He said. "These missiles make use of the shadow element. What I need to employ is the darkness element."

"Are they not practically the same?"

"Their definitions are too far apart from each other. They definitely exist as separate concepts." Ves explained. "That said, shadow can be treated as a derivative of darkness, so it is technically possible to mix and match the two together so long as you are precise enough."

"Why do you want to make use of the darkness element rather than the shadow element? The latter may be narrower in meaning, but that also makes it easier for us to shape into the desired form."

"I need the versatility and breadth of options of the darkness element." Ves patiently explained to his wife. "What Tusa is asking from us is anything but simple. Shadow alone won't cut it. If I want to limit this ability to a single element, then only darkness can be stretched to fulfill all three core mechanisms of the destructive phasing ability."

Even then, Ves needed to make heavy use of phasewater to enable the actual phasing process and strengthen it to a massive extent.

"Since there is no existing license or design that you can reference, you will need to develop the necessary parts and modules from scratch. Are you up to the task, Ves?"

"Sure. I once made the Geist System completely by myself, remember? Hyper technology and E-technology fall within my specialties. I pioneered these fields long before the start of the Age of Dawn. With the help of my new improvements, I think I can whip a solution together within the deadline."

The Geist System, while impressive in its own right, was far from comparable to this new function in complexity and integration.

Ves could not do it alone. He needed to obtain additional information on how to induce the frame of a high-ranking mech into a state that enabled it to pass through an entire starship without actually crashing into anything.

This was impossible, but then again so was the Leap of True Freedom.

One of the reasons why he was confident that it would work out anyway was because the willpower of a powerful enough expert pilot often helped to plug any gaps.

The Tusa of half a decade ago was completely unqualified to pull off an insane stunt like this. The Tusa that was promoted to a high-tier expert pilot with the help of general cultivation elixir was just powerful enough to succeed!

Ves had no confidence he could implement a comparable function in a standard mech. He needed to implement a lot more rigor and precision in his work, which was an impossible demand to meet at this time.

While Ves still had a long way to go before he could fully flesh out the new feature of the Dark Zephyr, his wife tentatively approved of his early efforts.

"I can see that you have a definite plan in mind." She said. "Thematically, this attack ability fits the Dark Zephyr remarkably well. It makes up for the living mech's lackluster attack power in a form that makes sense. Speed is of the essence. Each time Venerable Tusa decides to initiate a destructive phasing attack, he is gambling with his life and the life of his battle partner. If the two of them do not exit a hull in time, they risk phasing back into the main dimensions in advance, causing them to become superimposed with any matter that is already present."

She did not need to explain that this was a fatal outcome.

It seemed that the Dark Zephyr could not escape the common weakness of light mechs.

Their margin of error was much lower compared to other mechs!

Ves never intended for destructive phasing to turn into the Dark Zephyr's first resort. Venerable Tusa needed to show restraint and only pull it off when the Larkinsons became embroiled in a serious battle.

When the continued survival of powerful enemy warships resulted in constant losses to the Larkinson Army, then it was more than worthwhile for Venerable Tusa to employ his trump card to remove an enemy vessel off the board!

However, the consumption and associated risks were much greater at the high-tier expert mech stage.

Venerable Tusa really needed to advance to ace pilot and acquire a powerful Saint Kingdom in order to unlock the full-

powered version of this new attack ability.

His latest escapades had given Ves a much greater insight and understanding of domains.

The Saint Kingdoms of ace pilots was truly capable of defying reality to a large extent!

This was especially the case when they acted upon the ace mechs themselves. The sheer willpower of a determined enough ace pilot was already enough to selectively bend and break a few rules!

That was not the extent of what was possible. Saint Kingdoms were mere babies in front of God Kingdoms. Ves could do way more than turn the Dark Zephyr into a debilitating projectile if Tusa had the power of a god pilot!

Unfortunately, his god mech had nothing to do with Ves if that was the case. A Senior Mech Designer was not qualified to work on a genuine god mech!

Though Ves really hoped that Tusa and his battle partner would be able to transcend into godhood as a fused entity, it was too early for him to consider this possibility.

The pair still needed to overcome their latest hurdle, and that was waiting for Ves and Gloriana to succeed in upgrading the Dark Zephyr into a powerful machine!

"Ves."

"Yes, my dear?"

"If you are able to realize this insane ability, then I think that the Dark Zephyr may suddenly turn from one of the weakest to the most powerful expert mechs in our clan!"

"You truly think so, honey?"

"If the Dark Zephyr can 'destructively' phase through a warship, then he should be able to do the same to phase whales, other expert mechs and more. No wall or obstacle is safe anymore. There is no need for him to carry a bandolier of grenades anymore. His own mech frame has become his most threatening weapon."

Ves smiled. "I have high hopes for this as well, but don't forget that the Dark Zephyr actually has to get close before he can initiate an attack run. Once our enemies start to figure out the details of our expert mechs, I think it will become much harder for Tusa to enjoy free reign."