The Mech Touch

Chapter 6035 Exploiting Resentment

Neither the mechers nor the fleeters would be able to rest easily if they became terrorized by a rogue ace pilot or maybe even god pilot that excelled at takedowns launched from extreme distances!

The Amaranto could act like an assassin that secretly set up in a hidden location and quickly sneaked away once she had fired her killer shot.

It would be hard for the Red Two to guard against such a potent killer!

As long as Davia Stark and her Amaranto became strong enough, then no form of passive defense would be able to stop her fully charged shots from punching through and killing important VIPs!

Not even other high-ranking mech pilots would be safe against her assassination attempts.

Ace pilots were still human to an extent. None of them wanted to stay permanently welded to their ace mechs.

So long as Stark was able to catch these unsuspecting ace pilots away from their ace mechs, then these powerful heroes died just as easily as any other human!

Most ace pilots completely rejected the notion of killing their peers and rivals when they were outside of the cockpit. The mechers not only forbid this practice, but put a lot of effort into branding such actions dishonorable.

Not that this deterred Venerable Stark in any way.

As a woman who had set her mind on revenge, Stark had long forsaken all notion of honor and fairness!

Since the aliens, the mechers and the fleeters never exhibited any genuine honor and fairness towards innocent civilians, then Stark had no reason to hold herself to a higher standard!

She was one of the rare high-ranking mech pilots who did not value honor!

A powerhouse with almost no bottom lines had the potential to become a fearsome killer!

Ves inwardly shuddered at the thought. What sort of monster was he nurturing? How many mechers and fleeters would Davia Stark kill once she completed her 100-year contract with the Larkinson Clan?

However, Ves quickly relaxed after thinking about the possible consequences of letting her loose if she was still alive at that time.

Who knew whether the Red Association and the Red Fleet would still be standing 80 or 90 years later.

Even if the Red Two remained as strong as ever, what did their concerns have to do with the Larkinson Clan?

Ves may have gained the status of an honorary member of the Red Association, but he never fully embraced the mechers. He had always tried his best to maintain a degree of separation from the Red Two. In no way did he want to become absorbed in their power structure.

Ves disliked the Red Two, but he did not hate them. Most of the mechers and fleeters were actually quite decent. He willingly cooperated with the Survivalist Faction, the Transhumanist Faction and the Second Main Fleet because it was in his best interests to do so. He benefited a lot from receiving their backing and protection.

Yet that still did not gave Ves a reason to prevent Davia Stark from pursuing her vendetta against the mechers and the fleeters.

Ves made a sincere agreement with the powerful marksman mech specialist. He did not want to break his principles by betraying the trust of one of his key clients. He also did not want to turn a woman with almost unparalleled lethality into an enemy!

In addition, the Red Two may have separated themselves from the Big Two to an extent, but the former had inherited enough of the latter's foundation to represent a continuation of sorts. Neither the Red Association nor the Red Fleet had made any attempts to dismantle their hegemony over human- occupied space.

Since the Red Two had no qualms about inheriting all of the property and authority of the Big Two, then the former should not complain if they had to inherit all of the sins of the latter as well!

No matter whether they resided in the old galaxy or the new frontier, the mechers and the fleeters were still the same for the most part. They possessed the same faults and held almost the same degree of disregard for space peasants. It was their elitism and their strong neglect towards the interests of the lesser folk that caused them to earn Venerable Stark's animosity.

As far as Ves was concerned, this was the negative karma that they accrued through their stupid policies. They deserved to suffer the consequences of their own actions!

Combined with the fact that Ves had his own complaints about the Red Two, he was not very motivated to rein in Venerable Stark in any way.

Despite his honorary membership and his close associations with the mechers and more recently the fleeters, Ves did not feel any obligation to help them or protect them from this potential future threat.

The Red Association and the Red Fleet were already strong in their own right. Their control of human civilization enabled them to extract an insane amount of wealth and resources from the states under their reign. If they couldn't protect themselves against a single rogue marksman specialist, then that was their fault.

If he was being honest, a part of Ves even looked forward to raising Davia Stark into an extremely powerful offensive asset.

For the next 8 decades or so, all of her impressive firepower would remain at his disposal!

That was more than enough time for Ves to grow his power base and the Larkinson Clan to mature into a galactic power in its own right.

By the time it was finally time to let Davia Stark go, Ves would hopefully have a dozen other powerhouses of similar strength in his service.

He did not feel any guilt towards exploiting her drive for revenge. As long as she abided by her word and fought for the Larkinsons, then Ves would do everything in his power to enable her and strengthen her as much as possible.

Ves had no hope of convincing Davia Stark to join the Larkinson Clan and set aside her vendetta.

It was a hopeless idea. Expert pilots and ace pilots with a cause almost never changed their minds. Instead of harboring false hope, Ves instead accepted the fact that she would leave his service eventually.

There were still many years to go before that outcome would happen. For now, Ves was still willing to invest as much resources and effort into her development as he did for any other champion of the Larkinson Clan.

This was why Ves became more engaged when he discussed the planning for the Amaranto Mark III.

After Gloriana had made her intentions for the mech frame of the Amaranto clear to Ves, she shifted her focus from defense to offense.

"An archemech frame that is almost fully made out of hyper materials is not a weapon in itself." Gloriana told her husband. "It exists as an amplifier and an external source of power for the primary weapons of the Amaranto. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the design of her offensive armaments will make or break this upgrade project."

That was an odd statement to make. The extreme makeover of the Amaranto's mech frame was unprecedented and introduced a lot of new risks and dangers. Gloriana could not rely entirely on the lessons she learned from designing the Dark Zephyr Mark III to succeed in this project.

"What do you have in mind for the Amaranto's arsenal, Gloriana? Do you want to upgrade her existing weapons, or replace them with new ones?"

"The Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom should both remain at the Amaranto's disposal, but they need to be overhauled to the greatest possible extent in order to prepare them for combat at the level of an ace mech."

She activated a couple of projections that displayed vague interpretations of the upgraded mech rifle and mech cannon.

"Are those your attempts to visualize archetech versions of luminar crystal weapons?"

His wife nodded. "I am not as familiar with luminar crystal technology as you, so please explain to me whether it is possible combine archetech with luminar crystal technology."

Ves had never contemplated this question in the past. Back when he and his wife designed the Dark Zephyr Mark III, they never found it necessary to contemplate this subject because Tusa never asked his mech to be equipped with serious ranged weapons.

He could not avoid this subject now that his wife was ready to design the Amaranto Mark III.

"My answer is no with an asterisk."

"No with an asterisk?"

"In my professional judgment, it is too difficult to combine archetech with luminar crystal technology. A weapon that is completely made out of luminar crystals cannot easily be turned into archetech as the distinctive traits of both will get mixed up to the point of producing an endless amount of glitches and malfunctions."

His wife leaned forward. "That means it is possible, correct?"

"...Maybe." Ves gestured towards Hekkel's very distinctive crystalline archeshell. "There are obviously examples of archetech and archeshells that incorporate crystals, but that does not mean that the use of luminar crystals will instantly produce greater synergies. We need to conduct a lot of research on combining both in a way that allows them to combine their strengths while compensating for their weaknesses. I do not see how we can complete this research in a short amount of time. The knowledge and effort required to successfully develop a luminar crystal archetech weapon is beyond the scope of Senior Mech Designers such as ourselves. I highly advise you to wait until we have become Masters before revisiting this research topic."

He was being very serious about this. He acknowledged that it may be possible mash archetech and luminar crystal technology together, but the benefits weren't worth the huge amount of investment required to produce a successful outcome!

His wife looked disappointed. She was smart enough to come up with a similar answer, but she hoped that he might still have a solution.

Since that was not the case, Gloriana quietly shook her head and replaced her fantastical weapon designs with more familiar-looking ones.

"Since that is the case, we will continue to rely on luminar crystal technology for the Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom. Archetech only bestows a small advantage to the performance of ranged weapons, so it is not logical to rely on it to reconstruct the Amaranto's armaments."

"I see. The current iterations of the Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom are certainly powerful weapons, but the Amaranto should have reached their upper limits some time ago. It should not be problematic for me to apply straightforward upgrades to the materials that make up their luminar crystals. By utilizing new luminar crystal formulas that are made up of combinations of high-end first-class materials, their firepower and resilience will reach a much greater height. The upgraded weapons should still be able to keep up with Davia's growth for a long time."

These were easy upgrades that did not entail much serious redesign work. Ves could easily complete the work in a month as long as there weren't too many complications. He did not find it difficult to incorporate phasewater technology and hyper technology into the weapons either. The current versions of the two weapons already possessed transphasic and hyper properties anyway.

However, that clearly did not satisfy Gloriana's ambitions for the Amaranto.

"I have another question, Ves. Can you turn the Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom into Ultimate Modules? I can think of no better aspects to empower with your latest innovation than the primary offensive tools of our expert marksman mech. If you can empower them even further by granting them extremely powerful Ultimate Abilities, then I am confident that the Amaranto Mark III can truly gain the power to penetrate defenses of any warship or phase lord!"

That… that was an interesting possibility!