The Mech Touch

6007 Double Joy

Close to the end of the second year of the Age of Dawn, the Larkinson Clan welcomed two favorable developments.

First, Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson amazingly managed to break through during his initial piloting session with the Dark Zephyr Mark III!

The Larkinson Clan therefore welcomed its very first ace pilot, thereby raising its military power above another threshold and finally gaining parity with the other members of the Golden Skull Alliance.

Second, the stellar success of the very first archemech of the Larkinson Clan had propelled Gloriana Wodin-Larkinson to the rank of Senior Mech Designer, thereby proving herself to be a talented professional who possessed the capital to remain Ves' closest work partner!

News of the double breakthroughs immediately spread through the galacticwithin a single hour. The clan had already written public statements in advance, and it just so happened that two of them could finally be released to the public.

Many different parties immediately transmitted replies filled with congratulations and additional offers!

From the Inferno Spear Prince to the General Axelar Streon, many of the friends, allies and business partners of the Larkinsons all reacted positively to this development.

Previously, the Larkinson Clan occupied a relatively awkward position in red humanity's political landscape. Its foundation was incredibly shaky due to its rapid rise and its overdependence on its founder.

The breakthroughs of two key Larkinsons made a lot of parties reconsider the value of this clan!

Gloriana was hardly the only Senior Mech Designer who broke through while she was still in her forties.

The Red Association had many talents such as Jovy Armalon who enjoyed much better conditions.

Nonetheless, Gloriana's early breakthrough generated greater confidence in her ability to realize her ambitious design philosophy.

So long as she continued to progress further, a day might cwhere she would break through and beca Master Mech Designer, thereby contributing one or several fantastic new design applications to the mech community at large!

Gloriana already proved her ability to fund the Larkinson Clan to an extent. Her ability to design custom mechs had reached a level where other mech designers would be glad to collaborate with her on high-end mech design projects!

After all, Gloriana was not only an experienced masterwork mech designer, but could also design mechs that could automatically grow into masterworks if they failed to becone in the workshop.

Combined with her recently acquired mastery in archetech, every mech design project where she was allowed to apply her work freely would definitely gain a technological edge of the vast majority of other mechs of the sclass!

Ves felt lucky to have Gloriana by his side. She truly complimented his own specializations, and continued to develop her abilities in ways that further enhanced the value proposition of their collaborative mech design projects.

So long as Gloriana remained by his side, Ves would not have to worry about the technical shortcomings of his high-

ranking mech designs.

The biggest limitation to Gloriana's work was that she had no interest in designing mass production mechs. This was an inconvenient quirk as the LMC derived an enormous amount of incfrom selling standard mechs and licensing out their designs.

The potential incfrom designing custom mechs for third parties may be huge, but it was too incidental and not consistent enough.

The Larkinson Clan still had to rely on raising other mech designers. Ves was particularly optimistic about Ketis and Alexa Streon, and they were hardly the only talents in the Design Department.

"Tusa's breakthrough is also significant."

If Gloriana's ascension represented growth in the Larkinson Clan's economic and industrial foundation, then Tusa's rise completely elevated the Larkinson Clan's military power!

This was an area that Ves and many Larkinsons worried about. The new frontier was growing more turbulent by the day. Any accident might happen that could cause the frontlines to collapse. The current order becmore and more fragile. Ves did not think it would take more than a decade for the current peaceful order to make way for a more martial atmosphere.

Having lots of wealth without the hard power needed to protect it all would just turn the Larkinson Clan into a fat sheep!

No matter how many friends and allies promised to protect Ves' interests, these fair-weather friends only played nice because he remained useful to them for the tbeing!

Once that condition no longer applied, the Ves and his clan needed to rely on themselves to protect their place in the Red Ocean.

Having an ace pilot was one of the best possible ways to guarantee his power base!

Ves had already witnessed many other instances where the presence and availability of ace pilots granted leaders priceless security.

Saint Kingdoms were so large and all-encompassing that no threats could remain hidden within their range. They were particularly good at sniffing out assassins, infiltrators, informers and other people with malicious intent!

Although Ves currently did not have much need for this additional protection, he knew that if he ever felt threatened, he could always summon an ace pilot to his side and enjoy much greater protection.

There should hardly be any threats that Saint Tusa could not deal with once his Dark Zephyr turned into a proper first-

class ace mech!

"An ace mech will cin time. What is important is that our clan has finally broken the ceiling."

Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson was the first individual who had managed to reach the second major cultivation rank. As a mech pilot who had managed to get much closer to becoming a True God than any other Larkinson, he had managed to gain valuable insights and comprehension about what it was like to wield greater power.

The rise of an ace pilot was usually a joyous occasion to a state or organization because that very shero could provide invaluable guidance to other mech pilots!

The Larkinson Clan recently nurtured a lot of high-tier expert pilots. While many of them were occasionally able to approach the ace pilots of the Golden Skull Alliance for advice, the help these heroes provided was limited.

Only Larkinsons were willing to assist other Larkinsons without any barriers. The rise of Saint Tusa meant that other expert pilots such as Venerable Jannzi, Venerable Joshua and General Ark Larkinson finally gained access to a trustworthy mentor!

Even if Tusa's breakthrough conditions and process was utterly unique to him, the fact that he had becan ace pilot meant that he stood on a higher level in relation to expert pilots.

The mysteries that previously stymied him in the past no longer confounded him as much anymore!

As long as Tusa settled in as an ace pilot, he should be able to act as a qualified mentor to every expert pilot regardless of their unique conditions and convictions.

Of course, the fact that every expert pilot's journey was different meant that Tusa could not do all of the work.

In the end, expert pilots broke through because they managed to evolve their willpower past a critical threshold. This was a very ego-driven process, which meant that the warriors in question had to earn their breakthroughs the hard way.

The fact that Tusa managed to becan ace pilot with so little accumulation was the exception rather than the rule!

Fortunately, the Larkinson Clan only needed to obtain a single ace pilot in order to provide helpful guidance to all of the other high-tier expert pilots that were struggling to overctheir limitations.

"I wonder how Ark will react to this…"

Ves felt a little sorry for him, but his uncle had no one else to blfor his continued inability to break through.

The former war hero of the Larkinson Family had already received a fantastic high-tier expert mech in the form of the Lionheart. It also happened to be a masterwork mech, which was particularly conducive towards breakthroughs.

The fact that the older and much more experienced Larkinson expert pilot still hadn't managed to break through meant that he obviously wasn't as ready to reach the next rank as he thought!

Ves looked forward to seeing Ark's reaction towards Tusa once the celebration party began.

His wife had already scheduled one to celebrate the double breakthroughs. There was no need to turn it into a formal occasion, so his wife only invited the key figures of the Larkinson Clan that were currently available.

Before the celebration could begin, Ves, Gloriana and Tusa still had to handle a couple of immediate priorities.

Half an hour after the Dark Zephyr returned to the secure workshop, the powerful archemech just went through a relatively quick inspection.

Ves and Gloriana resisted the urge to return to their abodes in order to sleep because they wanted to examine the changes to their latest work.

"Good news, Tusa." Ves spoke as he floated down to the ground where Tusa was sitting on a crate while looking at his battle partner with a renewed sense of fulfillment. "The Dark Zephyr is still in good condition. The forced resonance state produced by your breakthrough was very weak. Combined with the robustness of archetech, only a small proportion of delicate components have deteriorated. It shouldn't take more than a day to repair these minor issues."

"After studying the Dark Zephyr and analyzing the data logs, I can confirm that you can make excellent use of your battle partner in his current form. You do not necessarily need to wait until your machine is upgraded into an ace mech." A very happy-looking Gloriana announced.

Tusa frowned when he heard that. "Does that mean my mech will not get upgraded in the short term?"

"That is not the case." Gloriana shook her head. "An upgrade is still necessary, but it should take at least half a year or longer before we can successfully convert your machine. For now, piloting your Dark Zephyr in his Mark III incarnation is an acceptable stopgap measure. The lack of ace mech-grade resonating exotics will prevent your true resonance from reaching its fullest potential, but your current machine is already very strong for a high-tier expert mech. You can essentially treat him as a demi-ace mech."

Ves affirmed his wife's analysis. "The Dark Zephyr's technical performance is so high that his performance ceiling has becmuch higher than before. Your breakthrough may have made you a lot stronger, but we are confident that your current machine can properly withstand the elevated load that you will induce onto the mech frame. There are cases where old expert mechs fall apart after getting piloted by ace pilots who have recently broken through, but that is because the design budgets weren't as generous. Do not forget that while your battle partner is technically a quasi-first-class expert mech, his material composition alone is well into first-

class territory."

In other words, the Dark Zephyr's tolerances and technical limitations had increased so much that Saint Tusa should still be able to pilot his machine without feeling too constrained!

This could not last forever, though.

"How long will I be able to pilot my mech without another upgrade?" Tusa critically asked.

"That is hard to say." Gloriana responded. "We know too little about ace pilots to know for certain. Based on my observations of Patriarch Reginald Cross and the Mars, you should not have to worry too much in the next handful of years. Your resonance strength should grow quickly during this initial period, so once you have surpassed a certain limit, you can no longer effectively channel greater power through your machine. Hopefully, we will be able to upgrade the Dark Zephyr into a proper ace mech before that happens."

Finding out that Tusa would be able to pilot the Dark Zephyr Mark III without too many limitations was good news.

It allowed the Larkinsons to take their twith converting the expert light skirmisher into a powerful ace mech.