The design he codenamed Blinding Mech was one of the most unusual mechs that Ves had ever come up with. It depended so heavily on strange and alien principles that Ves felt as if he had entered the rabbit hole.
On the surface, it sounded ridiculous. Whether he designed it as a rifleman mech or a knight mech, the entire concept of stuffing as many luminar crystals into a mech as possible made him feel ashamed!
Yes, ashamed!
What self-respecting mech designer would ever develop such a silly-looking mech?
“Still.. If it actually works, who cared how stupid it looks?”
Ves actually held a bit of confidence in this mech concept. The Crystal Lord Mark II may have failed to affect Venerable Joshua in any meaningful way, but that was just a limited test.
What if he deployed a hundred Crystal Lord Mark II at once?
What if he replaced the Crystal Lords with his Blinding Mechs?
He did not believe the Illustrious One’s glow was easy to shrug off in this instance!
Once he embraced this mech concept, he became more passionate about trying to make it work. He did not need to achieve drastic results. As long as 100 to 200 Blinding Mechs were capable of interfering with the perception of an expert pilot, this was already good enough for the desperate Hex Army!
“In fact, according to my existing understanding, the Blinding Mech’s effects should be quite mixed towards weaker mech pilots!”
The majority of humans, mech pilots included, were spiritually weak. Their spirits were so small and weak that they were in a permanent elusive state. They weren’t able to affect reality, but in turn it was very hard for reality to affect them in turn. This was for their own protection.
Therefore, if his Blinding Mechs all tried to ‘light up’ a random mech, chances were the mech pilot in question would only experience a bit of brightness.
“It’s like looking into the direction of a sun on the surface of a planet. You just have to squint your eyes and shade your eyes in order to cope with the light.”
Yet what if the targeted mech pilot happened to possess spiritual potential? What if the pilot just happened to be an expert candidate.
Ves shivered. Without the strength of an expert pilot, they were much more vulnerable against spiritual attacks!
He had no idea how much the spiritual illumination effect would impact mech pilots. He had too little data to make an educated guess.
At best, allowing some Blinding Mechs to shine on a mech pilot might reveal whether he or she possessed spiritual potential.
“This is quite a handy invention if this is the case.”
While Ves already possessed the means to identify spiritual potential, he was just one person. If this particular capability could be reproduced with a simple standard mech, then he didn’t need to use his perception in person!
His clansmen might be able to discover this quality among themselves with the help of a Blinding Mech.
In fact, the Hex Army could employ the Blinding Mech in this fashion as well! As long as the Hexers knew which particular mech pilots possessed the capability to rank up, they would be able to nurture them in a much more targeted manner.
This would definitely help them produce more expert pilots over time!
“There is another possibility.”
What if Blinding Mechs could do more than agitate mech pilots with spiritual potential? What if the Illustrious One’s glow was strengthened and concentrated to such an extent that it was able to harm these promising mech pilots?
Perhaps it might be possible to kill the future expert pilots of the Friday Coalition by lighting them up with hundreds of Blinding Mechs!
This was a very frightening possibility! Even though Ves believed it was unlikely that a glow could directly kill anyone, he reminded himself that the Illustrious One assimilated some of the strengths and techniques of the Blinding One.
A highly-developed dark god who lived for a very long time should have definitely sublimated its spiritual existence. Such an entity was on a whole other level than his design spirits.
Not even Qilanxo came close!
“She hasn’t lived long enough.” He muttered.
If his design spirits grew naturally, then they might catch up to Qilanxo’s level of strength.
Yet how long would it take to grow to the point of matching a dark god?
A thousand years? A million years? A billion years?
That was way too long! The Age of Mechs would probably be a vague historical record by the time his design spirits ascended to that level.
To Ves, the only way to hasten their growth was to rely on spiritual feedback. Ever since the Nyxian Gap Campaign came to an end, a couple of design spirits such as Qilanxo and the Golden Cat grew considerably stronger.
The Larkinson Clan may have lost thousands of clansmen from the gruelling battles, but the overall quality of mech pilots had risen!
To his design spirits, this exchange was a net positive. The spiritual feedback supplied by an expert pilot such as Venerable Jannzi was at least a billion times more valuable to a powerful spiritual entity such as Qilanxo.
As long as the mech pilots of his clan continued to progress, it would only be a matter of time before his design spirits attained the strength of a dark god.
Naturally, he wouldn’t be so crass to call them by that nefarious-sounding moniker.
“Should I turn the name around and call them bright gods?”
His face immediately turned ugly.
This was a bad idea!
Design spirits weren’t gods! Everyone who equated them to such were completely delusional, his wife included!
“I’ll have to come up with another term.” He muttered.
In any case, it would probably take decades before any of his design spirits reached this point. Even the Illustrious One had a long way to go, though Ves guessed that his path to ascension might be smoother because of his better foundation.
Ves put down his research on the Blinding Mech for the moment. He devoted enough time on this problem. Now that he obtained a solid direction, he was no longer when it came to this tricky project.
He stood up from his chair and decided to check up on Gloriana’s progress.
“Let’s go, Lucky.”
“Meow!”
When he dropped by Gloriana’s office at the design lab, she looked up from her terminal in irritation.
“I’m working, Ves.”
“I know. That’s why I came. “Ves smiled and sauntered forward. “Can’t I visit my own wife?”
She gritted her teeth. “This wife of yours is very upset at a certain insensitive husband.”
“Hey, don’t misunderstand my intentions. I’m only looking out for our interests and the interests of our clan. It was inevitable that we would expand the Design Department this way. Juliet truly isn’t as bad as you think she is. At the very least, she doesn’t pose a threat to our marriage.”
They both talked about this several times already. Gloriana was not in the mood of retreading the same arguments.
She sighed. “Do you love me, Ves?”
“I do. Do you know how much it pains me to be so apart from you? We are only married for less than a month, but already we’re sleeping in separate beds. Do you want the rest of our marriage to proceed in this pattern?”
A bit of regret showed on her face. “No. This isn’t what I’ve hoped from our perfect marriage. It’s just..”
Ves moved closer. He walked around her desk and put his hand on her head. “Gloriana. I know you’re upset with me, but can we get back to how we used to be before? Where is the trust we had for each other? Where is the joy that we used to feel?”
“I want to return to those days too, Ves.”
“Then why are you hesitating? Just throw aside all of your concerns. They aren’t helpful at all. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
The two spent some private time together. Both of them left for the lounge in order to cuddle up against each other.
While their cats were chasing each around the compartment, Ves and Gloriana hardly spoke as they reveled in each other’s scent and body warmth.
Though they hadn’t fully hashed out their differences, they grew more comfortable in each other’s presence.
Ves no longer felt as if Gloriana was one step away from exploding. She visibly calmed down as she continued to enjoy his presence.
“Are you better now?” He gently asked as he rubbed her shoulder.
“I.. don’t know. I think so. I enjoy these times.”
“That’s because we aren’t talking much.” He explained. “We have a lot of differences, but as long as we don’t voice them, we won’t enter into a conflict.”
She sighed. “We’ve been getting into more and more arguments. That’s not good. We both need to adjust if we want to keep our marriage intact.”
Ves pressed his lips. He did not mention that their recent problems were largely her fault. If she wasn’t so paranoid and irrationally afraid of Juliet, she wouldn’t have stirred up so much tension!
Still, he was confident this issue would blow over. Time seemed to work quite well in calming Gloriana down. He didn’t dare to approach her like this a week ago. He only tried to reconcile with her now because he judged she was in a more receptive mood at this time.
“Let’s talk about something we are more aligned with.” He suggested. “How is your mystery Hexer mech project going? Have you determined some more criteria for our sixth mech design project?”
She nodded. “I’ve studied the Komodo War and identified several opportunities for us to influence its course by introducing a new mech. To be honest, the Hex Army’s mech roster is quite rounded and already covers every essential role. Even with your glows, it’s hard to come up with a vision that can add unique value to the Hex Army’s lineup.”
“There is more to my design philosophy than glows, you know.”
“I know. You’ve explained that to me already. It’s just that in a war situation, glows have the most immediate effect. All of those other benefits such as growing a living mech or increasing the compatibility between mech and mech pilot just isn’t fast enough. By the time those other benefits come online, the Fridaymen may have taken over half of the Hegemony by then! We need to focus on delivering immediate benefits to the Hex Army.”
“So what is your best idea? What Hexer mech do you think can revitalize the Hexers?”
A devious grin appeared on her face. “I want to design a stealth mech.”
Ves blinked. “A stealth mech? Uhmm..”
“Are you about to say that stealth tech is classified? You aren’t wrong, but it’s not a problem for us. With how much the Hegemony adores us, we can easily gain the right permissions as long as it is for a good cause. Let me tell you that my cause is definitely worthy.”
He scratched his head. “I don’t know, Gloriana. How can a stealth mech designed by us be more useful than the Hegemony’s existing models? We don’t specialize in stealth tech and glows are kind of the opposite of what you want. Any invisible mech that emits a noticeable glow will doubtlessly be detected before it can get close!”
“That’s the thing, Ves. Your glows have a variety of effects. As you say, most of them draw attention. What if you can achieve the opposite? What if you can develop a glow that causes people around it to avoid attention instead of drawing it? As long as we implement such a glow into a serviceable Hexer stealth mech, it can probably sneak into more sensitive areas!”
“The idea sounds impressive. It’s just… most if not all forms of stealth detection purely relies on tech. It’s the sensors that trip the alarms, not people. A glow doesn’t act on equipment.”
“Are you sure about that?”
