Though his meeting with Gloriana did not end on the best of terms, Ves got what he wanted. It didn't matter too much to him that he was forced to postpone the development of additional loadouts such as the artillery and lancer ones. As long as he could complete one loadout at the same time he completed the core expert mech, Venerable Joshua would immediately be able to unleash a lot of power in battle!
"You're being way too controlling, Gloriana." Ves shook his head.
He disapproved of her approach. Though there were definitely merits to planning out the development of their projects in advance and limiting the scope of new ideas, he felt it was less appropriate for projects like these.
Expert mechs were some of the best machines that mech designers designed in their careers. They were magnificent platforms that incorporated the best technology and enjoyed much more lavish budgets than ordinary projects.
They were playgrounds for new ideas and served as excellent test beds for new innovations. Their parameters were so great that Ves could get away with implementing a lot of powerful ideas that would have been too impractical if he designed a regular mech.
"Not even my Devil Tiger is this extravagant!"
The Devil Tiger was a fantastic mech and one of his all-time favorites, but it possessed a very serious shortcoming.
Ves did not design it as an expert mech.
Instead, he treated it as a pure experiment that was meant to be piloted by some inconsequential pirates. How could he have known that his mother would steal a mech that was not entirely safe to pilot and hand it over to his father?
All sorts of problems resulted from this uncontrolled outcome!
The most fundamental one was that Ves never designed the Devil Tiger for his father or any specific mech pilot. This forced his father, who had piloted humanoid mechs for his entire life, to learn how to pilot a tiger mech.
Even though it worked out in the end, Ves didn't like the process. The Devil Tiger distorted his father's original piloting tendencies, and for some reason his mother used a strange trick with the stolen mech's design spirit to forcibly uplift his father to the rank of expert pilot, thereby achieving a desirable result but through the wrong means!
"A real expert mech should be adapted to an expert pilot, not the other way around!"
Ves saw hope of doing things correctly this time and providing the best possible accommodation for Venerable Joshua.
Expert pilots already had a lot of challenges to deal with. They already possessed a lot of power for humans, but that was also the main reason why it was so difficult for them to improve their strength. Humans were never meant to wield so much strength or possess so much willpower, so grinding it even further was very challenging without a suitable expert mech.
They were incomplete products on their own. Expert pilots only reached completion after they paired up with an expert mech. If the two were separated, both of the two elements lost their capital to be proud.
Aside from this, expert pilots also had to bear the risks of battle each time they deployed in battle. Many people admired their piloting prowess, but few of them thought about the huge risks they incurred when they fought against their peers.
Ves had witnessed a handful of battles between expert mechs, and each time he became appalled at how bloody they were! He had seen multiple instances of expert pilots dying far too quickly because their opponents possessed powerful capabilities.
"Mech designers exist to serve mech pilots." He reminded himself.
This common phrase that was popularized by the MTA gained more weight as he thought about this issue. Expert pilots were strong, but they were also pitiful. As warriors, they were extremely dependent on their expert mechs, so having the right ones was extremely important to their future progress and survival!
This was why Ves cared so much about the Chimera Project. He truly wanted to achieve the best result for Venerable Joshua. In fact, Gloriana had the same goal in mind.
It was too bad that husband and wife disagreed on how to accomplish this goal.
Gloriana did not want anything to go wrong. Her approach to project management was to minimize risks and avoid accidents. She wanted to guarantee a good result.
Ves clearly wasn't satisfied with that. He felt he could get a great result if he did something more with the Chimera Project. He was willing to take some risks and accept the possibility of failure because he was confident he could find a way to achieve a favorable outcome somehow!
Not everything could be planned. Not every outcome was set in stone. No experiment was destined to fail.
Unfortunately, Ves never managed to convince Gloriana to loosen up and set her sights higher. She wanted to establish firm control and never let anything slip.
"At least she made a concession." Ves happily stated as he returned to his workplace. "Isn't that right, Lucky?"
His gem cat, who floated beside his head, looked at him as if he was an idiot.
"Meow."
"Hehehe, you're the same as her. You severely underestimate what I can do with mounted wargear. Didn't the biojuggernaut teach you not to underestimate size?"
"Meow!"
Ves didn't expect a powerful mechanical lifeform that was literally the size of an ordinary house cat to understand his point. He would just have to prove Gloriana and all of his skeptics wrong by unveiling a powerful result!
Once he returned to his corner of the design lab, he called up his sketch for the so-called meat suit and started to think on how he could best approach this side project.
The more he stared at it, the more Ves thought it was inadequate. It looked too simple, basic and grotesque to impress the likes of his wife. Its simplistic design principles and planned features also sounded a bit lackluster to him. He felt that mounted wargear had much greater potential than just serving as temporary equipment for mechs.
"If my initial proposal is too simple, then I will just get ugly looks from my wife."
This was an intolerable outcome!
"It seems I need to come up with a more refined idea."
He thought about it and spent the next hour exploring a number of different ideas. He still held the goal of designing an organic mounted wargear loadout, but this time he tried to form a more complete and more dramatic concept.
At some point, Ves thought about combining this idea with the fact that Venerable Joshua's core expert mech would be designed with the ability to switch design spirits right from the start.
"If this is the case, what if I can attune the mounted wargear to this feature? What if I turn it into an incarnation and see if I can achieve some sort of synergy with this interaction?"
His boldest thought was that this might be a way for Venerable Joshua to allow design spirits to descend upon his expert mech and take over the form that was made in their likeness!
This was a brilliant idea, and a radical one as well! Ves became so excited by it that he instantly decided that this should be the way for Venerable Joshua to fight at his full potential from now on! It was not enough for him to fight his opponents like an ordinary expert pilot.
With his ability to empathize and connect with different entities, Joshua was practically made for this unique approach!
"Which design spirit should I choose?" Ves suddenly frowned.
This was an extremely critical choice to him. The choice of design spirit would not only affect the difficulty and chance of success of this innovative new idea, but also set the tone for how Venerable Joshua's expert mech would fight in the future.
If Ves botched the implementation, it would become much harder for him to make another attempt. He not only had to pick an easy design spirit to work with, but also one that could fully show the power of his idea.
"Which one is suitable?"
Design spirits like Bravo and the Solemn Guardian were clearly unsuitable. The former was weak and the latter did not really possess any powerful spiritual abilities at all. In fact, the lack of triggerable abilitiesin the Solemn Guardian was a pretty major shortcoming for one of his most popular design spirits.
"Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to upgrade you so that you won't fall behind compared to my other design spirits." He softly murmured.
That was something that he should address another time. Ves continued to go over other possible design spirits.
Only a few powerful and friendly ones caught his attention.
"I can pick between Qilanxo, the Superior Mother or the Illustrious One."
He was tempted to add the Golden Cat to the list as well, but remembered that she did not excel in battle.
The three design spirits that Ves had picked out were all powerful, possessed well-defined abilities and were friendly enough to cooperate with him on this idea.
"One choice is not necessarily better than the others." Ves judged. "At this point, it is more about my own preferences and what mech type I can best use to fulfill a specific role."
His original intention was to design an organic mounted wargear loadout that would transform Venerable Joshua's expert mech into a supreme assault machine.
Picking the Illustrious One would turn it into a powerful ranged beast instead. While Ves felt tempted to explore this idea because his fleet was lacking in ranged expert mechs, he did not understand enough about the luminar design spirit.
Ves never really interacted with it since it kept to itself. He also never got in touch with the Crystal Lord Mark I and II's either. It would be too abrupt for him to design a fleshy incarnation of him when the Illustrious One was still a relative stranger.
"What abou Qilanxo?"
The big lizard excelled at defense, but she was never the frontline warrior in her pantheon back Aeon Corona VII. That job was left to her husband and the other sacred gods that used to be her colleagues.
"I don't need another version of Jannzi and her expert heavy space knight." Ves shook his head.
That left the Superior Mother. While the matronly design spirit was technically an all-rounder, she was so strong and inherited so many methods from Cynthia Larkinson that it didn't matter too much!
The great success of the Valkyrie Redeemer was solid proof that the Superior Mother was able to serve as an adequate design spirit for offensive mechs.
Besides, Gloriana would love it if Ves created a female incarnation of her favorite 'proto-god'!
"My mother will be my first!" Ves firmly decided.
Once he made his decision, he quickly revised the ugly and grotesque meat suit and made it a lot more refined. He gave it a femine shape and covered it with bone armor to preserve her modesty. He also integrated some devices into the frame so that they could project a dignified custom over the giant flesh body.
This was just a draft design, so Ves didn't bother adding too many details to it. He just had to invest enough effort to convey his idea.
"I'm done!"
As soon as he completed his revised draft, he didn't bother to visit Gloriana again. He summoned Dr. Perris, who curiously approached his workplace.
"You called, sir?"
"Yes. Please sit down. I have just come up with a new side project related to Venerable Joshua's expert mech that I think will be of interest to you. Let me start from the beginning…"
Ves quickly rushed through his explanations before he unveiled his design for the incarnation of the Superior Mother.
He already expected to shock Dr. Perris with his new idea. No one normal would ever think of cladding an ordinary expert mech with a meat suit that turned into a giant woman!
Yet her actual reaction was a lot worse than he expected.
"Patriarch! This is wrong!" She stood up and shouted! Her eyes shook as his proposal inadvertently triggered her trauma. "Are you trying to recreate Special Project 'U'? We can't create a second bioabomination! We'll become war criminals! We will all get devoured by this giant monstrosity if it comes to life!"
"It's not that big!" Ves attempted to correct her misunderstanding. "This incarnation is only a fraction of the size of Uranus. There is no way it will go out of control!"
"This is just the first step to recreating a monster like Uranus! This is a slippery slope! Don't do it Patriarch. Designing this so-called incarnation is the first step to damnation!"
"I'm already further ahead than that. I'm not called the Devil Tongue for nothing." Ves jested.
Dr… Perris clearly missed the joke.
