The Mech Touch

Ketis decided to present the two configurations that she came up with for the First Sword.

Both of them shared a lot of commonalities, which enabled her to make a certain degree of progress in the month since she commenced the First Sword Mark III Project.

However, she would soon reach a point where she could not design the ace mech any further without finalizing the list of collaborators and making a definitive choice on the configuration.

"Let me begin with the pure version first." The swordmaster bearing the Heavensword spoke. "The inspiration for this project comes from the duel where Dise successfully broke through. After speaking with the Master Mech Designers of the Mech Supremacist Faction, several of them have proposed to design an ace mech that can become the ultimate sword fighter. It focuses on stripping away as many redundant elements as possible so that as many resources will be devoted to strengthening the armor system, the flight system, the artificial musculature and so on. By making them as strong as possible, Saint Dise will be able to execute her swordsmanship to the best of her ability, thereby allowing her to bring out her best when dueling against enemy phase lords, particularly the ones that wield the notorious Saint Piercer arms."

The mention of the dreaded Saint Piercer weapons caused Ves to narrow his eyes.

During the last battle he participated in, the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa managed to stall Saint Tusa and the Dark Zephyr Mark III for a long time due to the exceptional threat posed by this weapon.

Ves also couldn't forget that the experimental weapon that was rumored to be jointly developed by the Red Cabal and the Cosmopolitan Movement was ultimately responsible for killing Venerable Imon Ingvar.

Saint Piercer arms gradually became more and more common after that. It appeared that the enemies of red humanity had managed to move past the experimental stage and begun to produce them in greater numbers.

While the Saint Piercers were presumably still expensive and difficult to produce, the native aliens steadily accumulated more and more of them over time!

It was not an exaggeration to call them game changers. Alien phase lords already possessed a considerable advantage in defense, but now that they gained a weapon that could directly negate the true resonance and willpower amplification of an expert mech or ace mech, the native gods turned into much more lethal threats!

"I see." Ves rubbed his hairless chin in thought. "If you want to create a powerful duelist that can fight head-on against a phase lord equipped with a Saint Piercer, then it is not a bad idea to strip out the gimmicks, because far too many of them can be negated by the strange tech and materials that make these alien arms so ridiculously effective. The sword fey that I envisioned for the First Sword Mark III will probably get cut or pierced to ribbons by the Saint Piercer because it can completely invalidate most forms of true resonance empowerment."

The sword fey would still remain a good investment when fighting against other opponents, most notably enemy small craft, but they would not fare well against the enemy that the Red Three was most concerned about.

Against this high-priority threat, Saint Dise had to bring out the most of the First Sword and put all of her skills in hunting exobeasts to use.

"This is why my first choice of collaborator is a Master Mech Designer who is the first to develop an effective, if expensive, countermeasure against Saint Piercer arms." Ketis said.

A new projection appeared that displayed the public profile of Master Lilian Recins.

"This is one of the foremost defensive specialists of the Mech Supremacist Faction. Master Recins is known for her Class III design philosophy centering around Energized Vibrometal Armor Systems. Energized vibrometal is a special form of structured alloy that vibrates at a high frequency just before getting attacked. Due to many reasons I will not get into, this can partially negate the damage of incoming attacks. What truly makes Master Recins notable is when she managed to develop transphasic energized vibrometal. This has made her armor systems drastically more effective at resisting transphasic attacks. The highest end version of this design application has also proven to be partially effective at resisting Saint Piercer attacks. The Red Three have discovered by now that Saint Piercer is somehow able to concentrate phasewater far above the theoretical saturation limit. Therefore, only highly effective transphasic defenses have a chance of resisting this weapon."

"What?!" Ves reacted with surprise.

Discovering the principal reason why Saint Piercers were able to pierce through all manner of high-end alloys as well as the Saint Kingdoms of ace mechs was a huge intelligence gain!

Of all of the reasons why Saint Piercers were so ridiculously powerful, Ves never expected for this to be the reason!

The theoretical saturation limit determined how much a physical object could be infused with phasewater before it became so volatile that it started to tear itself apart.

Ves had always assumed that this limit couldn't be broken, because why would he think otherwise?

Learning that it was possible to break the theoretical saturation limit was like learning that he could put 1 kilogram of sugar into a cup that held only 100 milliliters of tea!

It sounded absurd!

It sounded impossible!

Yet the native aliens and the cosmopolitans managed to turn this into a reality!

The successful development of Saint Piercer arms certainly proved that the enemy could never be underestimated. Even they were capable of coming up with amazing technological innovations.

"Do you know how the native aliens are able to break the saturation limit?"

"Maybe." Ketis answered with a bit of ambivalence. "The Mech Supremacists have shared their most likely theory with me. They haven't gathered enough proof to back it up, but it makes sense to them. Their best guess is that the secret to breaking the saturation limit is… to create a superdimensional object and infuse the extradimensional parts with phasewater. That is how you can theoretically infuse far more phasewater into a weapon than it can bear in the material dimensions. The Mech Supremacists assume that the only reason why the Red Cabal has been able to make these impossible products is because they rely on the extreme spatial manipulation abilities of an ancient phase whale. It is likely impossible to produce Saint Piercers through other means… at least for the foreseeable future."

It sounded complicated, but Ves was familiar enough with phasewater theory to understand what she meant.

Although the overly short explanation lacked a lot of important details, Ves could see why it was plausible.

The production method had to be extremely advanced and difficult to reproduce considering that it needed to manipulate matter in more than 4 dimensions!

Ves looked a lot more thoughtful as he processed this information. "I see. So this is what the pure configuration is designed to fight against. You want the First Sword to be able to effectively resist these superdimensional weapons."

Ketis nodded. "Now that the Red Three know more about Saint Piercer arms, they are hard at work in trying to develop effective counters against them. This will take precious time which red humanity might not have. The special transphasic alloy developed by Master Lilian Recins is not completely effective at resisting Saint Piercer arms, but it is one of the best solutions that is currently available in this early stage. Even if there are better options available in the future, I will still bet on transphasic energized vibrometal alloy."

It was not difficult to figure out why.

"Ketis, this special alloy… can not only be used to build a much stronger armor system, but can also be used to upgrade the Decapitator, am I correct?"

The swordmaster grinned. "That is a good deduction. You are exactly right! There is no point in fielding an offensive melee ace mech when the weapon subsequently gets cut and broken into pieces after getting struck by a Saint Piercer. The Dark Zephyr was able to get away with defeating the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa because he relied entirely on evasion to render the Saint Piercer ineffective, but the First Sword is a medium mech. Even though I definitely plan to increase her mobility as well, she will never be able to evade as well as an ace light skirmisher. She will get struck, and her greatsword will get struck as well. It is absolutely necessary to prepare them against the lethality of superdimensional weapons ahead of time."

No wonder why Ketis readily agreed to collaborate with the Mech Supremacists.

The design applications of Master Recins was simply too useful for the First Sword Mark III!

Ves shifted his attention towards his wife.

Gloriana looked anything but happy at the mention of the RA Master Mech Designer, and he could already deduce why she felt this way.

"I haven't heard any details about this transphasic energized vibrometal alloy yet, but I think I can guess why you want Gloriana out of the project. This special material can't be used in combination with archetech."

"..."

Gloriana refused to respond, but her silence was an answer in itself. Experience exclusive tales on M-V-L

Ketis was much less reluctant. "Energized vibrometal alloy and its transphasic version both rely on high-frequency vibrations to take effect. That is why they must be applied on mech frames in special ways to prevent all of the shaking from destroying delicate internals. From what Master Recins has told me, her design application simply cannot be integrated with archemetal because there is no way to easily compensate against the transmission of vibrations, and because archemetal parts cannot shake so wildly in order to function as a seamless whole."

That fit with what Ves knew about archetech. The archemetal blocks that comprise archemechs and archeships had to be solid and stable in order to function properly. If some or all of the blocks started to vibrate wildly enough, then they would constantly suffer from transmission problems. Signals might get distorted and end up sending the wrong commands, leading to lots of errors and malfunctions!

It was a nightmare to make archetech compatible with energized vibrometal alloy, so only one of the two solutions could be integrated into the design of the First Sword Mark III.

Ketis had already made her choice on the matter.

"Gloriana."

"...What is it, Ves?"

"Can archetech be used to make the First Sword Mark III just as resistant if not more against a superdimensional weapon like a Saint Piercer?"

"No." Gloriana reluctantly but truthfully replied.

"Can the application of archemetal onto the blade of the Decapitator be used to make the weapon a lot tougher, sharper and more resistant against superdimensional weapons?"

"No…"

Ves pinned his wife with a pointed stare. "If that is the case, then I do not see any reason why you have any business with the First Sword Mark III Project."

"THAT IS NOT TRUE! THERE IS MORE TO KILL THAN PHASE LORDS ARMED WITH SAINT PIERCER ARMS! BESIDES, IT IS NOT AS IF AN ARCHEMETAL VERSION OF THE FIRST SWORD IS COMPLETELY HELPLESS AGAINST THIS TYPE OF ENEMY!"

Ves remained unmoved by his wife's latest tirade. "I do not think that Saint Piercer arms will disappear from the battlefield anytime soon. I think we should treat them as the Red Cabal's version of Destroyer weapons and adjust accordingly. Even if their numbers will remain limited, our clan should prepare at least one specialized counter against them. It is a good idea to dedicate the First Sword to this task as Saint Dise is our best duelist."

"It is stupid to rely on melee mechs to counter a phase lord equipped with a Saint Piercer!" Gloriana vehemently retorted! "We should rely on our best ranged mechs such as the upcoming Minerva Mark II and the Promethea Mark II to eliminate or drive away this adversary!"

Ves shook his head. "That takes way too long! Do you know how much punishment these phase lords can endure?! If there is no melee mech that can block their advance, they will tear through our fleet and our ranged champions if they also happen to possess a mobility advantage! Like it or not, Gloriana, but we need a melee mech that can withstand Saint Piercer arms up close. If Ketis is right about the effectiveness of transphasic energized vibrometal alloy, then this means you are off the project."