The Mech Touch

In the final days of the examination period, Master Willix seemed to focus less on the Quint.

Instead, she devoted an increasing amount of time on designing mechs that contained life!

The speed at which she designed astounded him. Though she put up an opaque energy screen around her to prevent contaminating Ves and Gloriana with her methodology, the fact that she could present a complete mech within thirty minutes absolutely shocked them both!

Her mastery of technical mech design had reached a very great height. What took months for Ves to design could easily be put together by someone who was much more senior in their profession.

This was what it meant to be a Master! The distance between her current state and the legendary mech touch was quite close!

Of course, as much as Master Willix tried, she never even got her foot in the door when it came to designing mechs with life!

Though her energy screen blocked most if not all forms of probing in a similar fashion to his Privacy Shield, Ves could still peek at her from a spiritual lens.

It was difficult to observe her in a passive manner. She was like a sun in his vision. Her formidable spirituality was so powerful yet so contained that it was very difficult to see what was actually going on inside her mind.

Nonetheless, Ves observed enough to guess that even though Master Willix concentrated fully on designing her mech, she lacked the most essential ingredient to convey her mechs with even an inkling of spiritual foundation.

She lacked the life domain!

Her spirituality exhibited a lot of light and heavy attributes, both of which interacted with each other in a delicate balance. This made sense as Master Willix originally specialized in gravitic systems according to her public record.

Whatever methods rational mech designers used to imitate other people's design philosophies, they could copy the theory and knowledge, but they weren't quite capable of copying other people's spiritual attributes!

Yet if that were so, why was she capable of copying Gloriana's specialization to such an accurate degree?

After a bit of thought and a lot of surreptitious observation, Ves formed a possible theory.

Rational mech designers did not really utilize their spirituality in the same way as other mech designers. Their spirits had become very tame and contained, thereby allowing their rationality to take primacy in any attempts to design a mech.

The value that spirituality brought to their work therefore had to be substituted by something else.

What else could rational mech designers substitute this quality than their greatest strength, their rationality?

Ves began to suspect that each time Master Willix designed a mech, she kept her passion and most of her spirituality under lock and key while she let her mind work overtime in forming some sort of mental construct that served as a 'fake' design seed of some sorts!

It was actually quite similar to how Ves created masks and infused them with spirituality!

The advantages of this method were myriad. If Master Willix was truly capable of reconstructing the design seeds of other mech designers, then wouldn't she be capable of substituting their work to a reasonable degree? Even if the fake possessed a couple of shortcomings compared to the real deal, Master Willix wasn't limited to channeling just a single fake!

She could probably channel half-a-dozen fake design seeds and leverage the strengths of each of them at the same time!

If she chose the right design philosophies to imitate, then she might even be able to achieve synergies despite working as a solo mech designer!

Ves couldn't help but feel profoundly shocked at the limitless potential of such a mode of mech design!

No wonder rational mech designers were considered superior!

No wonder rational mech designers dominated the MTA!

No wonder the MTA developed such a voracious hunger for the innovations of other mech designers!

For a moment, Ves felt incredibly inferior. As he worked hard to deepen his design philosophy and tread new paths, Master Willix could just take advantage of his hard efforts to and effortlessly copy most of his hard-earned innovations as long as she possessed the right understanding!

Yet… it appeared it wasn't so easy to copy other people's understanding of mechs. Class IX design philosophies were especially known to be odd and unorthodox.

Ves had a suspicion that one of the primary reasons why Class IX were valued rather poorly within the mech community was because rational mech designers couldn't make good use of them! The difficulty of imitating an odd design philosophy like his own was ten or even a hundred times harder than Gloriana's design philosophy!

The much-vaunted rationality of mech designers like Master Willix worked against her in this case. The more rational she became, the less capable she was of violating basic truths.

For example, suppose a madman mech designer existed who was capable of designing reality-defying mechs. The premise of his design philosophy rested on the assumption that 1 + 1 = 3.

It was plausible for someone who didn't possess a right mind would be able to believe in such an absurd statement.

Yet it was impossible for a rational mech designer who clearly knew that 1 + 1 = 2 to delude herself into thinking otherwise!

The starting point of his design philosophy was that mechs were alive. Mechs were capable of possessing the quality known as life. Mechs needed to be treated with the same amount of respect as living beings.

This was not merely a case of regarding mechs as a vessel of life. Ves went beyond that and truly indoctrinated himself into believing that even if they were composed of a lot of metal parts, they still possessed the potential to be alive!

Since the start of his design career, Ves had always lived and breathed through this principle. He regarded it as his core ethos and never violated it like his other principles!

How could a passerby, even someone as mighty and superior as Master Willix, possibly embody all of his efforts within a matter of days?

He felt more relieved after making this realization. He lost his concerns and began to regard her feeble attempts at copying his design philosophy as an amusing pastime.

His life domain contained more than just his beliefs that mechs were alive! It also contained his heartfelt admiration and wonder for life.

If even a Master Mech Designer failed to imitate his design philosophy, then Ves had nothing to fear from others breaking his spiritual component monopoly!

Naturally, there was also a downside to this development. Ves would find it exceptionally difficult to pass on his teachings to someone else. As a prerequisite, they needed to have the right aptitude to develop a domain that encompassed both life and mechs!

That was a concern for later, though. For now, Ves was more than pleased to see a mighty Master fumble so embarrassingly in trying to imitate his design seed.

Naturally, Master Willix didn't hit her head against a wall all the time. She regularly consulted Ves on how to design his style of mechs.

She even instructed him to design a basic mech on the spot!

"Please design a mech in front of me in three hours."

"I can't design a mech that fast, ma'am."

"The quality of your work doesn't matter. In your record, you designed several competition mechs under high pressure. It shouldn't be a problem for you to develop a mech design."

Ves shrugged and did as he was instructed. He didn't dare to play any funny games this time and earnestly concentrated his mind to design a very rough and unoptimized knight mech.

He designed the mech according to a very plain and boring vision. He simply imagined the knight mech as an immovable rock. He wanted it to function as a mobile obstacle that could root itself in place in order to withstand a huge amount of incoming fire.

Ves declined to borrow the strength of Qilanxo or another design spirit to enhance the spiritual character of his design. He was afraid that Master Willix would be able to capture this interaction!

Instead, he fell back to his older methods and simply created an image of an immovable rock in his mind before infusing it with a generous dose of spiritual energy.

This turned the spiritual image into a remarkably substantial existence despite its lack of complexity!

Ves hoped that its apparent strength would be enough to fool Master Willix into thinking that the empowered image was not that much different from one of his design spirits!

He created and empowered the image on the fly as he was designing the mech. This little bit of multitasking was well within his capabilities.

At the end of the three-hour design period, he infused the mech design with his simple image, thereby bestowing it with both structure and life.

Despite the inconsequential nature of the rudimentary knight mech, Ves was truly proud at what he was able to do in just three hours of time. This mech was far more sound and coherent than anything he could design under the same conditions in the past!

The mech actually worked. It was a viable design that could truly be used for the purpose that Ves meant for it to fulfill. Not only that, but it possessed a simple but very noticeable X-Factor that accentuated its use. Any mech pilot who hopped into the cockpit would doubtlessly become influenced by the image of the immovable rock!

Despite holding back his more important techniques, Ves truly exerted his utmost. His pride as a mech designer prevented him from purposefully doing a bad job under the observation of a Master in his profession.

Whether Master Willix was able to glean any secrets from his operation, Ves didn't care. He had become firmer in the belief that Master Willix lacked multiple essential qualities that allowed her to manipulate her spirituality in the same fashion as his own!

If the Master wasn't putting on an act, then she truly failed to comprehend how to replicate his methods.

In the next couple of hours, she continually reproduced the knight mech he designed down to the finest detail.

From a technical standpoint, her attempts were completely accurate down to the nanometer!

Yet during this entire time, her spirituality remained still while her mind created different mental constructs.

These were similar to his images, but were completely hollow because they lacked spirituality that could infuse them with life and turn them into autonomous existences!

When she somehow managed to apply her mental constructs to her imitated designs, the effect wasn't very noticeable.

That was because hollow mental constructs contained no substance! They added nothing to a mech design because they were just figments of Willix's imagination!

Naturally, this didn't mean that Master Willix might be able to find the right knack and succeed in the future, but Ves believed she lacked too much to be able to equal or surpass his design philosophy.

Rational mech designers may be capable imitators, but they were never able to match the sheer capacity for innovation like passionate mech designers!

Ves may only be truly good in one aspect of mech design, but he was the only one who was capable of delving new ground!

The same went for Gloriana. Master Willix made a fine attempt at copying her design philosophy, but she relied on her mind instead of her heart!

There was always a gap between theoretical understanding and absolute belief.

The former was a house of cards while the latter was a solid mansion!

No matter what went wrong, Ves would always possess the belief that he was right! The same went for Gloriana!

This kind of persistence was a trait intrinsic to passionate mech designers. It was essential to their ability to innovate!

Ves tried hard not to look smug or gloating. He maintained a humble and respectful posture and regularly provided her with useless advice.

At the end of the seven-day period, Master Willix finally stopped her attempts and wrapped up the examination of the Quint.

The MTA delegation was finally ready to depart!