The Mech Touch

It turns out that companion spirits derived from active expert pilots were much more powerful and useful from the start!

Part of that was because Emma was not just a pure spiritual entity, but also gained a lot of might and substance due to integrating the extraordinary willpower of an expert pilot.

Another part of that was more specific to Venerable Irene Mox as her domain was largely centered around destruction.

The intrinsic power she gained after she completed her apotheosis gave her the ability to amplify the might of her expert mech\'s explosive attacks.

This was not a surprise. Expert pilots who dedicated themselves to artillery mechs often developed similar capabilities.

Although this ability could be extremely potent, there was one major downside.

It was most effective at increasing the power of explosive warheads at closer ranges!

The further an explosive shell or missile traveled, the harder it became for the expert pilot to maintain a state of true resonance on the munition.

This was also one of the reasons why an expert mech as powerful as the Iron Hedgehog was limited to firing specialized shells.

Not only did every projectile have to be tougher and more resilient in order to endure the greater power of the Iron Hedgehog\'s cannons, they often incorporated resonating exotics as well.

The weaker projectiles only integrated a small amount of generic resonating materials.

The stronger ones integrated larger quantities of more specialized resonating materials.

While it was possible for expert pilots to resonate with projectiles without any resonating materials, it became a lot harder to keep them empowered once they flew into the distance.

The cost to keep an expert mech armed with serious projectile weapons was not low, but it was often worth the investment!

Expert mech-grade physical weapons often inflicted considerably greater damage than energy weapons!

This was an especially crucial factor in fights between expert mechs. Their resonance shields and resonance-empowered armor systems could resist a lot of attacks under normal circumstances.

By empowering attacks with greater resonance, it became easier to \'cancel out\' the defensive resonance effects of the enemy.

Even so, mech pilots such as Venerable Irene Mox were long accustomed to seeing their projectiles lose extraordinary power as soon as they were launched.

This was why Emma had become so special. Venerable Mox quickly realized that embedding her new \'companion\' to a shell could essentially circumvent this restriction!

Ves watched with awe from Irene\'s mind as she controlled Emma with greater and greater enthusiasm.

Each time the orange cat merged with a shell, she fully maintained her awareness and continued to radiate Irene\'s willpower right until the moment the warhead finally detonated!

"This is truly amazing." Irene said as a living explosion once again reformed inside the cockpit of her expert mech. "I have never imagined that it would be so easy to channel my full power onto a warhead that is launched over a hundred kilometers away. I have heard that even ace pilots struggle to make this happen."

Miew!

As Emma continually launched out of the barrel of a howitzer, the newborn spiritual cat did not look weak or exhausted in the slightest.

Ves grew more and more interested in the strengths and weaknesses of a companion spirit directly formed out of the force of will of a strong expert pilot.

Blinky flew in front of Irene again. "Does it hurt whenever Emma blows up along with the explosive ordnance she is attached to? Does it take effort to reform your cat next to you? How many times can you keep this up in your estimation?"

It took a few seconds for Irene to address these questions. She had become incredibly engrossed in exploring the new options that Emma introduced. If not for her growing gratitude towards the purple cat, she would have remained silent.

"I feel that Emma is born for this. It is in her nature to explode and release her power, so it doesn\'t seem to hurt her at all." Irene steadily replied even as she formulated her next targeting solution. "It doesn\'t take much effort to remake her body either. This is all new to me, so don\'t ask me how this works. Doing all of this is slightly draining to me. I do not know how often I can launch these kinds of attacks, but I feel I can easily do this over a hundred times."

That was fairly amazing! Emma not only complimented Venerable Irene perfectly, but also provided a significant boost in combat effectiveness.

This shouldn\'t be surprising in hindsight. Ves recalled that he heavily needed to limit the strength of the companion spirits he bestowed to his children when they were still growing in Gloriana\'s belly. They were far too young and weak to support anything stronger, and their intrinsic spiritualities also made for weak ingredients.

In contrast, a solid mid-tier expert pilot such as Venerable Irene Mox could start off with a much more powerful companion spirit from the start. Her force of will also made for an excellent main ingredient because it was not only extremely powerful, but also exhibited a perfect fit with its source!

Ves looked forward to granting companion spirits to all of his Larkinson expert pilots as soon as he concluded this Mastery experience. He needed no more testing and verification to know that this spiritual augmentation would permanently transform the combat power of his own champions!

As Venerable Irene continued to make use of Emma, she and Ves soon figured out the limitations of her ability to amplify the explosive power of warheads.

"Is there a way for you to split Emma up so that you can empower multiple warheads at the same time?" Blinky asked.

"No." Irene shook her head. "I have tried my best, but I only have a single cat."

"That\'s a shame. Your Iron Hedgehog has 8 howitzers, so you won\'t be able to maximize their firepower in this way. I think that once all of this is over, you should issue a request to your superiors to commission a brand-new expert mech that takes advantage of your new capability. I do not think your higher-ups should refuse because this is an extremely powerful \'talent\' that can change the outcome of entire battles."

Ves already guessed that this was likely the household ability of the future Destroyer of Worlds!

He felt infinitely proud for playing a decisive role in facilitating the eventual emergence of a strong god pilot! His contributions to human civilization were so enormous that the MTA should award him with a trillion MTA merits!

Of course, there was no way that Ves dared to claim any credit for this accomplishment. If Divine Irene Mox made an earnest effort to keep Emma confidential throughout her later career, then no one should ever be able to find out that he had somehow managed to travel back in time.

In any case, even if the current Irene was way too far away from reaching her god-like level, she had already become a greater existence on the battlefield!

The observation data transmitted from the front showed that the Bontue vanguard mechs already started to show signs of deflation. The terror of getting instantly killed by a supremely powerful explosion gripped the hearts of every enemy mech pilot.

Irene was able to do a better job at suppressing the enemy with a single super howitzer attack than with eight regular artillery discharges!

"Maybe… you are right." The expert pilot spoke as she continued her efforts to take down one enemy mech after another. "My Iron Hedgehog isn\'t as good for me anymore. I would gladly trade away 6 of my howitzers in order to get a supersized artillery cannon that can fire shells that are twice as large and powerful."

Ves already came up with a lot of interesting ideas for an expert mech that complemented its expert pilot in several different ways, but it was a pity that he wouldn\'t be able to stick around long enough to contribute to its design.

"Are you able to empower the physical rounds of your gauss cannons in a similar way? Will they explode or hit harder or something?" Blinky asked next.

The enemy mechs hadn\'t come close enough to make it worthwhile to fire the gauss cannons, but Venerable Irene Mox already formed a guess based on the available information.

"I can probably harden one gauss round at a time so that they will hit even harder, but that is all. This will be helpful when I need to attack tougher enemies. The shells empowered by my cat may look drastic, but much of their destructive forces are dispersed over an area."

Ves agreed with Irene. This was simple physics.

Soon enough, a new development took place.

An expert mech showed up and quickly raced to the front in order to slice apart the friendly scout mechs that played a crucial role in marking the coordinates and movement characteristics of the advancing Bontue mechs!

"That expert swordsman mech can slaughter all of the scout mechs on our side if left untouched!" Blinky warned!

Although the Quillims deployed other expert mechs at New Kreon, none of them accompanied the scout mechs for fear of getting defeated in isolation.

The Quillims were actually uncertain how many expert mechs the Bontue defenders had at their disposal. It also remained unclear whether the Bontues were willing to assign them to this vanguard troop.

The appearance of the Blue Amazon answers many of these questions. It was a known quantity to the Quillim Mech Army, so Venerable Irene Mox quickly gained access to an intelligence on the expert mech and its expert pilot.

She didn\'t have time to go over it in detail, though. Several of her Quillim comrades had already died in a short amount of time. Each of them had played a crucial role in giving her enough vision on the distant enemies to allow her to land her attacks without fail!

Miew miew!

Emma quickly merged with another shell in a howitzer that was ready to fire.

Once Irene formulated a quick targeting solution based on the movement patterns of the Blue Amazon, the artillery cannon fired once again!

BOOOOOOM!

Irene and Emma put a bit of extra effort into this attack, so the resulting blast just managed to reach the enemy expert swordsman mech!

Once the powerful explosion faded, the Blue Amazon looked pristine, but that did not mean it remained comfortable.

"Its resonance shield has taken a slight hit." Blinky said. "It will take dozens of more glancing blows to push it to its limits, but you can strip the resonance shield much faster if you can land your shells closer to the Blue Amazon\'s position."

This was already a fairly good result!

Irene nodded. "I know. Stay quiet and let me concentrate. My new target is much harder to pin down."

A howitzer fired again. The Emma-embedded shell managed to strike fractionally closer to the Blue Amazon despite the latter\'s best efforts to evade the attack.

Even so, its resonance shield still looked as if it could withstand a lot of abuse!

The following attacks produced mixed results. One strike even missed as the enemy expert pilot successfully read Venerable Irene\'s attack!

Even so, Irene did not break her concentration. She grew more and more intense as she started to get a better feel of her distant adversary\'s movement and evasion characteristics.

"It\'s time."

One of the howitzers of her expert mech started to load a different explosive shell than the ones that came before.

The shell was larger and covered with brighter markings. Its mass and shape were slightly different, indicating that it contained a substantially different warhead!

Once Emma began to merge with it, the special shell glowed with much more true resonance than before!

This was an expensive projectile that was specially designed to damage enemy expert mechs!