The Mech Touch

Chapter 7401  The Bastion of Earth

All of the gifts made the meeting worth it more or less.

Though Ves became burdened by a new set of secrets, the new technologies neatly outweighed any additional discomfort.

His mood improved by a noticeable degree by the time he finally exited the Resonance Smith's lab chamber.

His mind continued to wander off as he mindlessly followed the guards back to his shielded shuttle.

Several hours passed by as his vehicle quietly brought him back to Starfarer's Berth.

By the time he reunited with his wife and children, he finally snapped out of his daze.

"Did you hear about Jannzi's breakthrough?! She has become the latest saint of the Larkinson Clan!"

"I heard about it. She is quite fortunate to be able to overcome her bottleneck at this time." Ves responded in a measured tone. "We still have to complete our current batch of high-ranking mech design projects before we can think about implementing a proper upgrade to the Bastion."

His wife nodded. "That is true, but it will not take too long to complete the Promethea Mark II and the Lionheart Mark II. I will begin the preparation work on my end. The Bastion has missed out on the archetech revolution, so my first task is to reimagine the entire heavy space knight as a machine made out of archemetal."

"About that, Gloriana. During my recent visit to the Resonance Smith, he has bestowed us with a number of gifts, one of which happens to be highly relevant."

Ves did not delay and immediately transferred the documents related to the new superdimensional alloy formulas.

His wife rapidly processed what she just received. Her expression bloomed as she quickly realized how much the knowledge could help her design a stronger and more resilient archemech!

"As expected of a Star Designer! You must have done particularly well in pleasing him. I will have to study these alloy formulas further, but from the brief amount of descriptions that I have read through, they are exactly what we need to reconcile the need for defense with the need for other functions. If the complexity of these new materials is not too great, we may even be able to incorporate them into the Promethea Mark II and the Lionheart Mark II, but that does not appear to be likely."

Ves thought for a moment. "It is probably too late for that. We will have to go back to the drawing board and completely overhaul the internal architecture of the two ace mechs. That is not necessary in my opinion. The Promethea Mark II is primarily a ranged mech, so it is not necessary for her to incorporate the latest technological advancements. As for the Lionheart Mark II, there is no need for us to go out of our way to provide extra services to General Ark Larkinson. The current configuration is already sufficient for his needs. We should save up all of that time and effort to design a truly impressive version of the Bastion."

His wife did not look particularly pleased, but she also could not ignore the practical issues.\

If she insisted on overhauling the two ongoing mech design projects, then she would effectively throw away a lot of prior design work. This was quite wasteful. It also delayed the development of other high-ranking mechs, which would ultimately be unfair for all of those pilots who had been waiting for new machines for at least several years.

"Bastion has always been your brainchild, Ves." Gloriana said. "Do you have any special ideas in mind to make the next iteration more remarkable than the previous version?"

Ves grinned. "It just so happens that I have a few proposals in mind. They are still fairly rudimentary, though. I still need to conduct further research and possibly contact a few potential collaborators to determine whether they are feasible. My most ambitious idea is to convert the Bastion from a regular Carmine mech into an elemental Carmine mech."

Out of the 5 classical elements, only one of them possessed a good degree of compatibility with a heavy space knight such as the Bastion.

"You want to orient the Bastion towards the earth attribute, is that correct?" His wife guessed.

"Yup. The issue is that I am not sure what aspect of the earth element that I want to emphasize. According to the current performance of the expert heavy space knight, the Bastion relies on both gravity manipulation as well as her Radiant Shield to deliver a dominant performance on the battlefield. The earth attribute has strong associations with gravity, so I believe it will not be too difficult to strengthen this particular aspect. This will hopefully make the Bastion more capable of intercepting and trapping fast-moving units. On the other hand, the earth element also has a strong connection with gems. Strengthening the Radiant Shield with the help of dozens of powerful gems will likely result in a formidable increase in defensive performance."

"The benefits of superdimensional technology already grants more than enough defense in my opinion." Gloriana voiced her opinion. "That said, when it comes to a defensive mech, more is always better. In fact, I do not see much of a conflict between the two proposals. You can incorporate a gravity-related key resonating exotic into the mech frame while also installing powerful hyper gems into the Radiant Shield. As long as the two remain separate objects, it should not be difficult to prevent them from interfering with each other. At worst, you will have to prioritize one over the other."

She may be right. Both of them would have to conduct more research, but it may very well be possible to have their cake and eat it too. It all depended on how extensively they could combine all of the new methods and technologies.

"The Bastion will likely serve as the prototype for the mass production model of earth elemental Carmine mechs." Ves said. "Whether to put the emphasis on gravity or gems will have massive implications for the future. Either way, I don't think I will be able to design all of it myself. I will be heavily dependent on outside help, just as with the other elemental Carmine mechs."

"We still have time to consider all of these matters, Ves. Let us focus on completing the Promethea Mark II and the Lionheart Mark II first. New technologies or not, we need to deliver them within 2 months if we want to reduce our backlog of projects."

They briefly discussed their progress on the two ongoing high-end mech design projects before moving on to other subjects.

Ves briefed his wife on the other two gifts imparted by the Resonance Smith.

"Interesting." Gloriana adopted a thoughtful expression. "I can see why you have grown suspicious towards His Excellency. Your caution is warranted in this case. These Resonant Breaking Hammers sound extremely useful for your Ascended Giants, so that can be interpreted as charity. What is truly problematic is giving us a primer on anti-resonance technology. Even if the Resonance Smith has only given us an introduction, the strategic value of all of this exclusive knowledge is incredibly high. We cannot be naive and assume this is a casual gift. He absolutely had ulterior motives in mind when he gave us this last gift."

Ves looked surprised. "Why would you think so, honey?"

"When we deploy any form of anti-resonance technology on the battlefield, everyone will be able to figure out where we got it from. Combined with the use of Resonant Breaking Hammers, our entire group will bear the imprint of the Resonance Smith. It will be difficult to shake off the suspicion that we have become his vassals."

That caused Ves' mood to sink. "I didn't consider this angle. I thought that it is already well-known that we are actively cooperating with at least half-a-dozen different parties."

"You are right, Ves, but some collaborations are more visible than others. What I just mentioned are highly recognizable to outside observers. They may even send the wrong message. I do not think it is your intention to convey the impression that we are eager to hitch our wagons to the Resonance Smith."

Ves nodded. "Our clan needs to maintain an independent reputation. Although there are plenty of groups who would love to develop a subordinate relationship with a powerful Star Designer, we are not one of them. It will only do us more harm than good to develop a strong association with a controversial Star Designer. From my recent talk with the Resonance Smith, I believe he is just as extreme as the Polymath. He just hasn't been as successful as his female counterpart."

"Naturally." Gloriana smirked. "The Polymath is much more decisive and thorough in her planning. Pardon my language, but the Resonance Smith is a loser. He is constantly criticizing the state of our society, yet has never been able to enact real change. He has few allies and lacks the courage to take unilateral action. The only praiseworthy part about him is his work. His mastery of anything related to resonance is unmatched."

In other words, the Resonance Smith was a good Star Designer but not much else.

Ves did not know whether her characterization of the Unbounder Star Designer was accurate.

So far, the Polymath had indeed accomplished a lot more since the start of the Age of Dawn, so a comparison between the two did not favor the male Star Designer.

Whatever.

"I do not think it is wise for a bunch of Seniors like us to judge a pair of Star Designers." Ves carefully said. "We should focus on our business. The Resonance Smith may have other goals in mind when he granted us those gifts, but that is no reason for us to set them all aside. It should be straightforward enough for us to make use of the superdimensional alloy formulas and the weapon designs of the Resonant Breaking Hammers. The same can't be said for the primer on anti-resonance technology. I have skimmed through a number of pages and found much of the contents to be counterintuitive."

Gloriana grew curious. "Give me the files."

He transferred the documents to her cranial implant set.

A few minutes passed by as she rapidly skimmed through the contents herself. Her frown deepened as she read more and more pages of dense and abstruse theory.

"I see what you mean, Ves. Anti-resonance technology seems to go against everything we have learned about true resonance and so on. However, its potential is not small. Due to various reasons, it is practically impossible to incorporate anti-resonance devices onto high-ranking mechs or anything that makes use of resonance. This makes it ideal for us to incorporate this unusual tech into warships or the wargear of your Ascended Giants. As long as we make good use of this knowledge, we do not have to fear the growing proliferation of stolen resonance."

"I guess so, but it will take a lot of work before we can get to that point. We have only gained access to the basic theory. We still have to do a lot of work to translate that into concrete applications. I am not sure we have enough time and manpower at our disposal."

"I believe that anti-resonance technology is too valuable for us to ignore." Gloriana seriously stated. "I will present this to Casella and convince her to increase the budget of our R&D institutions yet again in order to accommodate this new research direction. The possession of anti-resonance solutions may very well determine whether we will thrive or struggle in the future."

What they truly needed was a specialist in resonance or anti-resonance. Neither Ves nor Gloriana were well-versed in these fields.

Perhaps… this may have been one of the Resonance Smith's schemes.

Once the Larkinsons encountered bottlenecks in their research, they would have little choice but to look for outside assistance.

Who better to turn to than a mech designer or researcher who hailed from the orbit of the very same Star Designer? Exlor