The Mech Touch

5985 Fadestone

After a sumptuous breakfast, Ves and Gloriana entertained their kids for a time.

Though the kids wanted to witness their parents embark on a great work yet again, their schooling was more important. Neither of the two parents permitted their children to skip their classes just so that they could see an expert mech being remade into a much stronger version.

This was not the first ttheir family went through this ordeal. Upgrading the Dark Zephyr was of great importance to the Larkinson Clan. Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine had to spend a week under the care of their nannies and other clansmen as their parents could not afford to lose their focus.

"Please do not be concerned, madame." Shannon Maris spoke as her arms held the hands of Aurelia and Andraste. "Your son and daughters will remain preoccupied for the remainder of the week. We have already scheduled several visitations to the estates of their wealthy Terran playmates."

Gloriana lifted Marvaine in the air and kissed his cheek before putting him down.

"Miaow~"

Clixie ran up and rubbed her body against Marvainne, causing him to giggle and pet her back.

Once the children boarded the shuttle that would take them to school, many mech designers moved down to the high-end workshop where the Dark Zephyr awaited his life-changing transformation.

Only Larkinson Journeyman Mech Designers received permission to witness the remaking of the expert mech from afar. Plenty of them grew excited at the prospect of observing the best mech designers of the Larkinson Clan at work.

Even though the Journeymen all needed to complete their daily work quotas before they could spend their free ton observing Ves and Gloriana at work, none of them begrudged this demand.

This was because the opportunity to see Gloriana but especially Ves transform the Dark Zephyr into an archemech that might or might not reach masterwork quality was an exceptional privilege to them all! Many other Journeymen would kill to be in their position!

So long as the members of the Design Department managed to obtain a few insights from observing the Miracle Couple at work, they could incorporate their gains into original new design applications that would subsequently boost their design philosophies!

That was why neither Ves nor Gloriana minded the gallery. Letting their subordinates observe their work ultimately benefited the entire clan.

Before Ves entered the workshop, he briefly encountered a group of disgruntled mech designers.

Not every mech designer received the privilege of witnessing the transformation of the Dark Zephyr.

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Most of the low-ranking mech designers accepted the reality. It was not always good for their development to becexposed to the brilliance of stronger and more capable mech designers.

However, there was an additional reason why Ves prohibited the current group of mech designers from observing the upgrade process.

"Professor Larkinson, would you please reconsider your decision to leave us out of the workshop? We are aware of the risks, but we are not afraid of getting contaminated by your design philosophy. It is the opposite. We would love to becexposed to your work in close proximity. In the twe have stayed at your Design Department as guest designers, we have yet to make visible progress in reproducing the ability to design living mechs. We believe we may be able to achieve a breakthrough when we can observe you at work."

Ves peered down at the short but stocky form of Trent Aaden.

He and 9 other dwarven Novice Mech Designers had dressed up in their most professional outfits and looked eager to secure this opportunity.

Unfortunately for the dwarves, Ves had no intention of changing his mind.

"I have already explained to you why you are not allowed to observe the upgrade process. Not only will it be detrimental to your own development, the tech we intend to add to the Dark Zephyr are all highly sensitive. Don't getwrong, Mr. Aaden. I trust in your integrity. I do not believe you and your fellow Vulcanites are the sort of people who will sell out all of the secrets of one of my expert mechs. However, it is difficult to control such things when they have spread a bit too far and wide. There are cosmopolitans hiding in every corner. Once they learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the Dark Zephyr, our forces are prone to suffering a massive loss if the aliens ever make use of their information advantage."

The two argued for another minute, but Ves refused to budge. He remained unmoved even when the test tube baby of the legendary Iron Emperor took the initiative to offer another starship from the Eternal Vulcan Empire.

Ves already took a considerable risk by allowing so many Larkinson lead designers the opportunity to observe the upgrade process.

He was not stupid enough to grant outsiders the sprivilege.

While he was sure that the Red Association and maybe the Terran Alliance might have infiltrated the workshop to the point where they could observe every work process, Ves could not do much about it. He could just accept it and hope that these parties did not leak the information to their true enemies.

Of course, that did not mean he was willing to make it easy for all of these third parties. As he entered the mech workshop, he glanced over at Ariana Roux.

Although the new recruit was not that useful when it cto working with archetech, her expertise in hacking also turned her into a highly competent virtual security specialist.

Ves had tasked her and Lucky to cooperate with the clan's own resident security experts to thoroughly inspect and cleanse the workshop of any listening devices and spying software.

Right now, a dark gem cat hung lazily on the woman's shoulder. Ariana gently lifted her hand and petted Lucky's head.

"Meow~"

"Ariana."

"Sir."

"What did you find?"

"Not much." She said. "Your security experts and those dispatched by the Terrans, the mechers and the fleeters have been very thorough. The security consultants belonging to the latter three all kept each other in check, so I am reasonably confident that they have removed most of the subtle software taps in the old and new production equipment. It is just that it is not possible for us to guarantee that every form of tampering has been removed. The latest archetech fabrication machines are more advanced than anything I have seen. Their programming is highly convoluted. In fact, much of the proprietary software operates on an alien programming language. Our security experts will need to learn an entire language and culture in order to becfluent in its usage."

Ves did not look surprised at this. "I am not entirely satisfied with this result, but I am aware that this is the best that you can do for the tbeing. Go ahead and check whether the preparations for the ritual are in order. It might not seem important, but we cannot ignore the power of symbolism."

As Ariana and Lucky moved towards a section of the workshop that had been converted into a completely incongruent ritual site, Ves moved over to Alexa.

His newest and most reliable assistant performed a final inspection of all of the high-quality materials that would be used to upgrade the Dark Zephyr.

Each of the crates and containers remained closed whenever possible in order to prevent the energetic materials from creating accidents.

However, Alexa's attention was entirely taken up by a surprisingly small but decorated container.

Encrusted with gems and covered with velvet, the small container looked like it belonged on one of Gloriana's vanity stations!

Ves already guessed who sent this particular good. "It seems that Tristan Wesseling managed to fulfill his promise."

The Terran mech designer nodded. "It arrived yesterday. A fast courier vessel delivered it straight from Davute. I have already conducted a preliminary inspection. The raw data suggests that this hyper gem outperforms any other hyper material reserved for the Dark Zephyr Mark III."

Ves gazed closely at the container. It was doing a decent job at isolating the energy activity of the gem, but it was not enough. It had actually arrived in an even larger and more effective container to isolate the gem.

"Open it up, please."

Alexa transmitted a command that did so. As soon as the gem becexposed, the ambient E energy immediately began to surge towards the exposed crystalline object!

"That's enough."

The small container immediately shut down again, causing the surrounding E energy radiation to resits usual pattern.

"That was stronger than I expected from Tristan." Ves spoke with genuine appreciation in his tone. "It isn't the strongest gem that I have seen, but he has made good progress. What can you tellabout it, Alexa?"

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"According to the documentation provided by Mr. Wesseling, he has managed to combine Teraixe-063 along with other powerful hypers and exotics to produce what he calls the Fadestone. It is his best work to date and works as a remarkably effective positive shadow hyper gem. It not only generates a strong attraction to shadow energy, but slightly weakens the barrier between realspace and a dimension that is related to the shadow attribute. What is especially notable about the Fadestone is that it is notably pure. It has very little side effects that you should pay attention to, and it does not generate strong interaction with other elements with the notable exception of light."

"What happens if it gets exposed to too much light energy?" Ves inquired.

"Mr. Wesseling states that his Fadestone can withstand weak to moderate exposure to light energy. Any more than that and it will weaken accordingly."

"I see. That is no different from other shadow hyper products."

The Fadestone did not add any effects to the Dark Zephyr, but its concentrated power could directly enhance the effectiveness of the Dark Wind Module.

Due to volconstraints, Ves could not stuff it with as much Teraixe-063 as he wished.

The Dark Zephyr was already among the smallest and slimmest expert mechs of the Larkinson Clan. Its archetech conversion may have freed a bit of capacity, but Ves and Gloriana immediately filled it up with a lot of additional functions.

This was why Tristan Wesseling's business was starting to take off at the start of the Age of Dawn.

His expensive but compact hyper gems allowed for much easier and stronger integration of hyper materials in a technological device.

The only reason why Ves did not commission hundreds of gems was because Tristan's product couldn't be stacked.

Whenever two or more of his hyper gems gathered in close proximity, they started to interfere with each other for whatever reason. This was a limitation of Tristan's special production process.

Ves was no stranger to this restriction. Lucky's gems possessed the slimitation.

Fortunately, one hyper gem was enough for his purposes. With the arrival of the Fadestone, Ves internally increased the estimate of turning the Dark Zephyr into a masterwork mech by another 5 percent.

That still did not guarantee a successful outcome, but there was little Ves could do aside from hoping that his luck would pull through.

A part of himself was still intimidated by the prospect of making his first true archemech.

Both he and his wife would have to forgo a lot of familiar production processes that they had already mastered over many years.

Trying to fabricate an archemech using new and exotic production machines was as weird as trying to produce a biomech as far as he was concerned.

Gloriana did not suffer as much from this problem due to her significantly greater investment in archetech, but even she could not promise to match the quality standards of her previous projects.

Ves shook his head. There was no need to obsess too much over this aspect. The Dark Zephyr Mark III design incorporated so many changes and innovations that he could not even guarantee whether the new and improved expert light skirmisher could be switched on anymore!