The Mech Touch

Chapter 6485 The Controller Series

The auxiliary qi cultivation methods devised by the Red Collective ignited a new storm within the mech community.

All of the excitement surrounding Carmine mechs seemed to have little to do with existing mech pilots.

Mech pilots had heard that mechs equipped with both a neural interface and a Carmine System could raise the effective genetic aptitude of their bonded pilots. Unfortunately, the lack of suitable machines that possessed this configuration prevented curious and eager mech pilots to verify this exciting claim in person.

It was therefore the Red Collective that increasingly occupied their attention. Unlike the Red Association that mainly focused on improving their machines, the Red Collective had worked hard to develop methods that could improve the mech pilots directly.

This alone caused almost every mech pilot to develop an immediate good impression of the Red Collective!

It helped a lot that all of the beginner cultivation methods were free to practice by anyone.

In order to speed up the progress of mech pilots that bravely fought in the frontlines, the RC made sure to invest in enough instructors that provided both virtual and in-person lessons to get them all up to speed.

A lot of mech pilots hated the idea of going back to school, but the attraction of these fancy new auxiliary qi cultivation methods was so strong that they endured the indignity of returning to their school benches.

Fortunately, learning the first chapters of the free cultivation methods was not that difficult. The Red Collective understood what mech pilots were like and deliberately limited the scope and ambition of the beginner methods in order to prioritize tangible results.

Over the course of a single week, the more talented and diligent mech pilots had already begun to notice the results of their cultivation practice.

"I feel stronger and more alive than ever!"

"This is impressive, Mr. Reyre. According to the latest physical examination, you have largely recovered from your disease. Your body cells have shown signs of rejuvenation. They are beginning to divide again. You will be feeling and looking as if you are a decade or two younger if this pattern continues for a number of months. You have made the right decision by practicing the RC's Healthy Controller Auxiliary Qi Cultivation Method. Would you consent to allowing us to utilize your anonymized

data for a study? I hope to publish a paper faster than other doctors on the de-aging effect of cultivation methods."

Many old mech pilots that chose to immigrate to the Red Ocean in order to live out their retirement and spend their remaining lifespan in a different galaxy never imagined that they could become spry and healthy enough by practicing a weird form of meditation.

The Healthy Controller Method may be the simplest of the Controller Series due to lacking any components that offered a direct improvement in combat capabilities, but just the fact that people could absorb E energy to extend their lifespan and rejuvenate their cells was amazing, especially when they did not spend anything to harvest this gain!

Life-prolonging treatments no longer received any attention anymore as cultivation provided everyone with a much more convenient substitute.

The older the individual, the more concerned he was about their health and longevity.

This was why the health-oriented exercises had immediately become the most popular cultivation methods since the opening of the Repository.

It may take months or years for the practitioners to be able to extend their lifespans by just a handful of decades, but that was more than enough for people who otherwise had no alternatives!

Of course, the mech pilots that still had plenty of years left in them had little interest in wasting their time on extending their natural lifespans.

They were more liable to die on the battlefield at the hands of the native aliens!

What they needed was immediate combat power. The Repository offered numerous easily available options.

One talent that happened to make noticeable progress was a third-class light skirmisher specialist. The middle-aged mech pilot had already begun to lose his edge.

Third-raters tended to have the shortest careers as their lack of augmentations meant that they did not receive any bonuses to their lifespans.

Yet when this pilot had begun to practice the Fast Controller Auxiliary Qi Cultivation Method, everything had begun to change.

The pilot along with other colleagues who practiced the same method began to experience a small boost in reaction speed and pattern recognition. Their intuition also became better at detecting lethal threats.

All in all, the mech pilots who had begun to practice the Fast Controller Method already began to enjoy the fruits of their efforts as they had managed to lower their loss rate by 15 percent!

It was amazing to see how extensive a small improvement in cultivation could

produce such a drastic result!

"Hahahah! It actually works! I knew I should have put more stock in the claims made by the RA. These cultivation methods are completely legit! My reaction speed has returned to its best state. Did I just make myself younger again by practicing this method?"

Pilots that practiced the Fast Controller Method gained more benefits than that. Their pattern recognition and instincts had already improved by a considerable margin, both of which were vital to keeping light mech pilots alive.

The native aliens fighting on the battlefield were the first to suffer from these spontaneous improvements!

Whenever the two sides began to wrestle for control over fortified star systems, the light skirmishers roaming around the flanks of the battlefield had become a lot more active than before.

Previously, these light skirmishers focused on harassing and exploitation. Their role was not to stand in the frontlines and take hits like other mechs, but instead became responsible for annoying the native aliens and persuading them to split their forces. This was a dangerous responsibility as the light mechs had to fight far away from friendly support. If they ever got in trouble, their ability to get out of it was much lower than other mech pilots.

Yet after more and more mech pilots began to practice the Fast Controller Method, their ability to swoop in and get out before the enemy phasefighters caught up to them had become a lot better.

The light skirmishers managed to make a lot of small time savings by optimizing their movements, achieving their objectives in less time and recognizing when they had overstayed their welcome.

In dogfights against alien phasefighters, the light skirmishers managed to pull off tighter maneuvers and improve their coordination with each other.

It was as if every ordinary mech pilot had become elite, and those that already performed at this level fought as if they were expert candidates

Meanwhile, other mech pilots began to show improvements in different aspects.

Those that piloted rifleman mechs and heavy artillery mechs preferred to practice the

Precise Controller Method.

This product of the Controller series mainly strengthened the pilot's precision, situational awareness and pattern recognition traits.

There were a lot of elements that were identical to the Fast Controller Method. This was not a surprise as all of the methods of the Controller System were derived from the same base. They just incorporated different combinations of 'modules' to form a

coherent nookana that directed limited recources to accential areas of impratamant

Precise Controllers gradually became slightly more accurate when they launched their attacks.

The improvements may only amount to a 5 or 6 percent increase in hit rate, but that was already a remarkable result in the early stages of systematic cultivation. The small increase in landing shots caused a lot of ripple effects. Alien phasefighters

got shot down faster, which meant that mechs got rid of the hindrances faster, thereby enabling them to tackle enemy warships a little sooner.

If the increase in hit rates doubled or tripled in the coming months, then the ranged mechs would be able to make much more drastic contributions in every battle.

It would be as if every mech force fielded twice as many ranged mechs!

Of course, there were mech pilots that did not have any use for an auxiliary qi cultivation method that increased their ranged combat prowess.

There were many different specialists who all prioritized different strengths.

The Skilled Controller Method happened to be highly favored by offensive melee mech

specialists.

They were able to learn sophisticated weapon handling skills faster and also improved

their instincts that could help them make the right moves before they put any

conscious thought behind their actions.

The Intelligent Controller Method primarily boosted a pilot's intelligence, theoretical comprehension and data processing capabilities.

These were particularly helpful for mech pilots who got promoted up a tech class and needed to absorb a lot of knowledge related to piloting more complicated

second-class or first-class mechs.

The Intelligent Controller Method was also helpful for mech pilots who made use of support mechs that required a lot of calculations and judgment calls. This was particularly relevant for mech pilots that utilized scout mechs, ECM mechs, combat repair mechs, external shield mechs, stealth mechs and many more.

The Commanding Controller Method on the other hand focused on improving the practitioner's ability to command on the battlefield. While it provided a small boost to intelligence, it placed much more emphasis on multitasking, battlefield analysis and

leadership.

The mech officers who practiced this method did not notice any differences, but it had only been one week. They trusted the Red Collective quite a lot and were committed to persisting in their cultivation in the hopes of becoming better leaders.

Aside from these basic methods that were widely compatible with every pilot, there was also a special collection of free cultivation methods in the same series that provided more esoteric benefits.

The Elemental Controller Auxiliary Qi Cultivation Methods enabled the practitioners

to improve their comprehension and increase their affinity to a specific elemental E energy attribute.

Split into fire, water, earth, metal and wood, the instructors of the Red Collective dissuaded mech pilots from practicing these exotic methods unless they already possessed a strong preference for one of the aforementioned elements.

However, mech pilots found that they could easily check whether they possessed a talent biased towards one of the 5 'classical' elements.

The small group of mech pilots who were lucky enough to discover that they had a lot

of talent in fire or metal were able to make much faster progress in these basic

elemental cultivation methods.

While their practice did not help them shoot fireballs out of their hands or promote

the growth of trees, they discovered that they were slightly able to increase the performance of the hyper technology of their mechs!

"These auxiliary cultivation methods are awesome! It's like using E energy to obtain

the power of an expert candidate or expert pilot in advance! We won't be able to catch up to high-ranking mech pilots entirely, but we can close the gap and become a lot. more useful on the battlefield. Praise the Red Collective!"

This description was not hyperbole.

Most mech pilots had very little idea what traditional qi cultivators were capable of, but they possessed a better understanding of high-ranking mech pilots.

Their frame of reference was therefore oriented towards the champions of their

professions.

By practicing their chosen variations of the Controller Series, every ordinary mech

pilot had an opportunity to master the power that used to be reserved for the greatest of their kind.

This greatly motivated the mech pilots! The allure of breaking the human limit and mastering strange reality-defying powers at their current stage was so strong that more and more mech pilots practiced their cultivation methods with greater fervor! Although the widespread adoption of systematic cultivation had yet to affect their breakthrough rate, the mech pilots still gained a lot more confidence in the future. Even if they never developed the extraordinary willpower needed to trigger their apotheosis, this 'qi cultivation' business gave many mech pilots a lot of ideas. Was it possible to excel in piloting mechs in a different way? What if they ditched

their 'auxiliary' qi cultivation methods and committed fully to a proper qi cultivation method instead? Was it possible for them to become 'cultivator pilots' that combined the power of