The Mech Touch

Chapter 5981  Prelude to Transformation

Ves got reminded once again why interacting with the Evolution Witch was not a good idea.

The god pilot had violated his privacy and dug up a lot of secrets related to his complicated cultivation situation.

She not only managed to identify all of his incarnations, but also gained a huge amount of insights into how much their strength had grown at the True God-level!

This was a pretty massive information breach. Ves had plenty of reasons to worry about this unanticipated leak.

Although Ves trusted the Evolution Witch to avoid doing anything that directly damaged his interests, who knew what she might do with the intelligence she plucked from his mind.

He could not forget that the Evolution Witch was still a leader of the Red Association. If Ves ever fell out with the mechers, there was a chance that the god pilot might use the information against him one day.

"Ugh."

There was nothing he could do about it. The only acceptable response to this incident was to train his mental defenses to the point where the domain of a God Pilot could no longer dominate his mind to such an extent.

He at least needed to gain the ability to fend her off for enough seconds to close the connection!

"I should prepare other defensive measures. It is really embarrassing how easily she had me at her mercy."

It was times like these that Ves hated the fact that he was still stuck in the first major cultivation rank. He needed to work a lot harder and speed up his progression if he wanted to prevent a repeat of this incident!

In any case, Ves soon moved on with his life.

He briefly contacted the leaders of the Larkinson Clan and conveyed a summary of the first session of the Interim Leadership Council.

The message that the Red Collective would soon organize cultivation through a limited amount of sects had massive implications to everyone, including the Larkinsons!

"I am not sure what the criteria for obtaining a sect quota will be, but our clan probably won't have any trouble with securing one." Ves told the three chief ministers during a remote conference session. "It is better if we can obtain multiple quotas. We need at least one that is orientated towards raising combat cultivators. Perhaps Ketis can lead a separate one that is completely based on traditional swordsmanship. In addition, the Creation Association is pretty much a sect in all but name. It would be beneficial for us if we can formalize its status and allow it to gain support from the Red Collective."

That was an ambitious layout!

Whereas most groups that had heard of this news only thought about founding a single sect, Ves already sought to create three separate sects for the Larkinson Clan!

"What if we fail to secure more than a single quota, patriarch?" Chief Minister Novilon Purnesse inquired. "It is not strictly necessary for us to found three separate sects. We can create a single sect that we can split into multiple branches or departments. As long as we grant them enough authority, they can enact their own policies with little interference from others."

"You make a good point, Novilon, but it is always better to have multiple sects than none. If one of them has gone astray to the point where the Red Collective revokes its quota, we will still retain our other sects. There are other reasons why it is better to have more. As long as our clan maintains its growth rate, I think that we can obtain more than enough cultivators to justify their existence. For now, I need our clan to lay the groundwork in the planning of this future initiative. So long as the news surrounding this measure remains obscure, we can build up a very advantageous head-start."

The three chief ministers all agreed with this logic. Though none of them had a clear idea of what a sect entailed, they had plenty of time to investigate this matter.

Before Ves ended this private conference, Chief Minister Abigail Evern gave Ves an important notification.

"The expeditionary fleet is on track to launch a major operation." The former naval officer told Ves. "The Golden Skull Alliance has been working hard to collect intelligence on powerful alien battleships that we can take over and use against our enemies. The Black Cats and other investigators all understand the value of your Battlecruiser Token. In order to put us in the best possible condition to embark on the deep strike operations that will commence in two or three years, we are willing to delay our acquisition by several months if necessary. There is no concrete timeline on when we can locate a powerful alien warship and begin our capture operation."

Chief Minister Evern smirked. "The Red Cabal has begun to roll out modernized versions of their own homeships that have incorporated much more human technologies than before. While they are still rare at the frontlines, we have obtained clues of the arrival of several alien warships that have incorporated hyper technology as well as other advantages."

If the expeditionary fleet was putting so much effort to locate an excellent alien warship, then she certainly had to be a lot more special than the low-quality or outdated hulls that typically made up the alien raiding fleets.

"Can you share more details about the power and capabilities of the alien vessels that the expeditionary fleet is targeting?"

Chief Minister Evern smirked. "The Red Cabal has begun to roll out modernized versions of their own homeships that have incorporated much more human technologies than before. While they are still rare at the frontlines, we have obtained clues of the arrival of several alien warships that have incorporated hyper technology as well as other advantages."

Such vessels were indeed worth all of the effort. There was too much of a performance gap between old and new.

Ves did not request any further information. There was no need for him to know all of the details. He could only trust that the Larkinson Army and the expeditionary fleet had the situation well in hand. It was not worth it for them to sacrifice so many mechs, starships and human lives just to capture a fancy alien homeship.

He was perfectly okay with converting a junk-quality alien warship into a temporary battlecruiser.

"I will keep this in mind." Ves responded. "I think my clan can provide additional support to the Larkinson Army before the operation commences. I will make sure to check whether we are supplying our mech legions with enough updated Larkinson mech designs. Hyper technology is just too useful to miss out on it for so long."

"That would be appreciated, sir. The more new and updated hyper mech designs you can complete, the better. Your latest product releases have all resulted in a comprehensive improvement in battle results. We are all hoping that you can continue this trend."

After this virtual conference came to an end, Ves worked harder to complete his design work.

Although the probability was not great, he wanted to see whether he could complete this crucial mech design project fast enough to allow Venerable Tusa to participate in this ambitious operation with his new and improved expert mech.

Weeks passed by as Ves continued to place much of his focus on his research and experimentation.

The development of his ambitious Ultimate Module did not go smoothly all of the time, but his persistence and ingenuity allowed him to overcome many different problems.

Ves already figured out a broad plan for his destructive phasing module based on the key hyper materials that he had selected. He spent so much time familiarizing himself with the tangible and intangible properties of Omen Stone and Texeira-063 that he could come up with lots of ways to shape them into different products!

However, his proposed destructive phasing module was not an ordinary hyper tech product. Its advanced nature and impressive power demanded a lot more work and rigor from him. There were even times when he feared he might get stuck on the same problems for weeks on end.

That did not happen. Ves gained more momentum with each passing day. His mood improved so much that he no longer feared failure anymore.

He felt as if he had become invincible!

No matter what problem or complication got in the way, he bulldozed over the issue through a combination of inventive solutions and brute force problem solving.

Regardless of whether his work was elegant or robust enough, Ves merely cared about whether the end product became viable. Nothing else matters!

After enough time had passed, both Ves and Gloriana gradually brought the Dark Zephyr Mark III Project to a functionally complete state.

They had both worked hard to speed up the development of the high-tier expert light skirmisher.

Ves had completed a project that should normally take years to complete in a matter of months.

Gloriana had also gone above and beyond to completely redesign the Dark Zephyr into a full archemech.

The deep and pervasive substitution of conventional technology with archetech was so thorough that hardly anything that originally belonged to the Dark Zephyr would be left after its transformation!

As the date of the planned upgrade session drew closer, Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson and the current iteration of the Dark Zephyr departed from the expeditionary fleet and traveled all the way to the New Constantinople System.

Ves and Gloriana personally greeted the expert pilot and his living mech after they had been teleported down to the surface.

"Welcome to New Constantinople VIII!"

Ves grinned and moved forward to embrace Tusa in a friendly hug.

Though Tusa looked more bemused than sentimental, he appreciated the familial gesture.

"I have been looking forward to this for years." The expert pilot mildly said as the two Larkinsons separated. "This is a nice planet. I have hardly seen much of it, but I can understand why you have decided to settle down here. Have the Terrans been treating you well?"

"Naturally. The Terrans never fail to show their appreciation of my continued presence. They prefer it if I stay with them on a permanent basis, but I will not be able to oblige them. I will leave sooner or later. I just want my children to enjoy a somewhat normal childhood long enough before I leave."

"Understandable." Tusa nodded before turning to Gloriana. "Thank you again for putting in so much effort to upgrade my battle partner. You cannot believe how many times he has obsessively studied the technical updates that you have occasionally transmitted to us. He is looking forward to completing his transformation into an archemech."

"Truly?"

"TUSA IS SPEAKING THE TRUTH." A male synthetic voice boomed from the Dark Zephyr's external speakers. "I AM MORE THAN TIRED OF BEING KNOWN AS THE OLDEST, WEAKEST AND MOST OUTDATED EXPERT MECH IN THE LARKINSON ARMY. ONCE I OBTAIN THIS UPGRADE, IT WILL FINALLY BE MY TURN TO LAUGH AT MY INFERIOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. AS THE ONLY EXPERT MECH THAT INCORPORATES ARCHETECH AND AN ULTIMATE MODULE, I SHALL FINALLY BECOME KNOWN AS THE MOST POWERFUL MECH OF THE LARKINSON CLAN!"

The expert mech sure possessed a competitive spirit. He became so excited at the prospect of undergoing his long-awaited refit into a much more powerful version of himself that his spiritual foundation vibrated with excitement!

"Calm down, Zeph." Tusa called and slightly resonated with his expert mech from a short distance away. "You will have your turn. We first need to complete all of our tests and examinations. If the mech designers discover any problem, then that needs to get fixed first."

"HURRY UP, THEN. PLEASE START RIGHT AWAY. I DO NOT NEED ANY REST. I AM A MECH."

Gloriana smiled and gave the eager expert mech a friendly smile. "I originally wanted to postpone your examination for tomorrow, but if Tusa is willing to skip the celebratory dinner, I can examine you as soon as we have shipped you over to one of our workshops."

"Please do, madame."

Upgrading the Dark Zephyr mattered too much to everyone. None of the three Larkinsons had any objections to starting work right away.

It was for that reason that Ves, Gloriana and Tusa went straight to an underground mech workshop so that they could learn whether the Dark Zephyr was in a good enough shape to undergo a massive transformation.