The Mech Touch

Throughout his lecture, the ace pilot as well as the two Master Mech Designers refrained from making any interruptions. They calmly listened as Ves began to explain the lengthy and convoluted journey that ultimately led to the invention of the Empowered Blood Sharing System.

When he explained how the Carmine System was partially responsible for the massive boost in resonance strength for Venerable Jannzi, he finally saw a shift in the expression of the Mace of Retribution.

As a powerful pilot himself, the Mace of Retribution understood better than the other people in this completely enclosed chamber how significant it was to experience a major rise in resonance strength.

The only problem was that there were more factors that contributed to this outcome. It was difficult for Ves to determine how much of a difference it made that Jannzi had formed a Blood Pact with the Bastion.

"Venerable Jannzi Larkinson has always been one of the fastest growing expert pilots of my clan." He explained. "I like to think that I contributed greatly to her success by designing and tailoring her mech over the course of her service to me. She is not only strong-willed and dedicated to her cause, but she has also bonded with her living mech a lot more intimately than my other pilots. This has made her the most suitable candidate to pair with my Carmine System."

The results matched or exceeded his expectations. By interfacing with the Bastion by utilizing both the neural interface as well as the Carmine System, Jannzi became much more spiritually in tune with her machine.

Many of her parameters increased as a result!

Ves even saw indications that Jannzi and the Bastion benefited even more from their permanent symbiotic relationship now that E energy radiation became a factor.

All in all, the Carmine System provided powerful proof that a single expert pilot and expert mech could drastically improve their synergy and cooperation by forming a Blood Pact with each other.

Unfortunately, this was not definitive proof that the Carmine System could provide similar benefits to every other expert pilot.

The sample size was too small!

What if Jannzi was the exception?

What if other expert pilots needed to become just as devoted to their mechs in order to form a working Blood Pact?

What if the Blood Pact led to detrimental or potentially fatal side effects in the future?

What if there was a chance that other mech pilots experienced physical rejection when they started to circulate artificial blood generated by a mech in their veins?

Ves could not provide answers to all of these difficult questions. This clearly disappointed the two Master Mech Designers as they were accustomed to receiving reports that were much more comprehensive and detailed.

This was partially Ves' fault. He had rushed to present his work early as soon as he discovered its greater implications.

He did not regret the decision to present the Carmine System to the Survivalist Faction so prematurely. The conference taking place this week was by far the best venue for him to present a possibly groundbreaking new design application in front of a panel that represented all three camps of the Survivalist Faction.

In any case, once he was done with talking about how the Carmine System provided a lot of added value to an existing expert pilot, he moved on to the next case.

When Ves explained the basic details on how he managed to restore his grandfather's ability to pilot mechs and helped him revive his extraordinary willpower, the reaction from the panel was much more obvious!

Master Goldstein already learned about this beforehand.

Master Xena Wintress and the Mace of Retribution received a lot less information about what had happened to Venerable Benjamin Larkinson. Now that they received more details, they became fascinated at how a young second-class Senior Mech Designer managed to solve a long-standing problem!

For all of their knowledge, wisdom and experience, none of the Masters or Star Designers had managed to develop a solution to this problem, at least as far as they knew!

Even if one of these impressive and competent figures managed to develop a solution, it was clearly too demanding and impractical to be adopted on a wider scale.

Nobody missed the fact that the Carmine System clearly came with a lot of limitations and restrictions. Yet despite all of its shortcomings, it was still a much more practical and affordable way to restore the combat effectiveness of brain-damaged mech pilots on a wider scale!

Gears already started to turn in their heads about what this could mean. They thought about the large number of veteran mech pilots that had been forced into retirement against their will.

Every war or major conflict produced casualties where mech pilots suffered from all kinds of injuries.

All of that was wasted manpower as far the leaders of red humanity were concerned. Many states and organizations had poured a lot of money and other resources into training to become the deadly soldiers that they needed in their ranks!

All of that skill, wisdom and experience could be tapped once again if the Carmine System offered this group of disabled veterans a second chance to compete for glory!

The Mace of Retribution couldn't hold in his growing curiosity any longer.

"Is the Carmine System exclusive to expert pilots or is it also rated to work with standard mech pilots?"

Ves shook his head. "I cannot provide a definite answer to that question. I have yet to try it out. I can only give you my estimates and predictions regarding this technology. Theoretically, normal mech pilots should be able to pilot their mechs by relying completely on the Carmine System. However, I am pretty sure that genetic aptitude can still play a considerable role in the responsiveness and data processing speed of the mech pilot."

"How certain are you that this estimate is accurate?"

"I am not entirely certain." Ves admitted without any fuss. "My work is still rough and the sample size is far too low. I need to apply this tech to a lower-end mech in order to provide you with valid and significant information. That will take a lot of time."

He continued his presentation. Soon enough, he was ready to touch upon the most crucial implication of the Carmine System. It was the entire reason why this secret session existed in the first place.

"I have left out an incident that occurred during the first successful test of the recently fabricated Bastion. Venerable Jannzi informed me that... piloting her mech through the Blood Pact that I have briefly described before has led her to form a radical conclusion that may or may not be true. She has told me that the Carmine System can facilitate a new and alternate mode of piloting mechs for herself and others through an alternate channel."

Master Xena Wintress suddenly had a look of shocking realization on her face.

Her self-control had briefly failed due to the magnitude of the conclusion that she had just inferred!

"You mean...!"

"The Blood Pact is a metaphysical channel that can allow any bonded individual to operate a mech without the need for a neural interface. Forming a traditional man-machine connection certainly helps. Venerable Jannzi and the Bastion have proven that. However, if you leave out the neural interface, the brain is not subjected to excessive strain due to the need to process a lot of data. Instead, the pilot effectively processes a lot of data directly with his soul. This is also why the Blood Pact is so good at facilitating closer cooperation between the mech and mech pilot. It bypasses all of the detrimental elements that are not really necessary anymore."

Only now did the Mace of Retribution make the same realization as Master Wintress.

The strong Saint Kingdom that surrounded the pilot surged after his mind finally caught up to the magnitude of this development!

"Are you claiming that your Carmine System can make mech pilots obsolete?! Can any human pilot a mech through the Blood Pact regardless of whether they possess the right genetic aptitude?"

"Yes." Ves simply replied.

This caused Master Wintress and the Mace of Retribution to truly think about how such an invention could shake the entire mech industry and beyond!

Ves continued his presentation while much of the panel fell into thought.

He emphasized that he had never tested this hypothesis in reality due to lack of time. He also stated that even if a Carmine mech could theoretically allow norms to control its systems, the very obvious lack of training for all of these untrained 'pilots' meant that the results likely wouldn't be that good.

In addition to that, the bandwidth of the Blood Pact for norms was probably limited as well.

"The strength and bandwidth of the Blood Pact is highly dependent on the strength of the soul of the parties involved." Ves explained. A living mech of my own design usually has a decent amount of strength to begin with. Expert pilots such as Venerable Jannzi and Venerable Benjamin can also contribute a lot to quickly improve their Blood Pact. Ordinary mech pilots with weaker souls will not be able to match the aforementioned results. They will probably have to start out simple and slowly work their way up through constant practice and the passage of time."

This was heavy information. The ace pilot and the two Masters continued to process a lot of different thoughts as they understood that just the hint that this was possible already justified the need to hold a secret session!

Ves quickly wrapped up his presentation after that. Though he wanted to share more of his own opinion to his distinguished listeners, he took Jovy's advice in mind and did not try to mention his predictions on what would happen if the Carmine System became ubiquitous.

It was up to the leadership and cadre of the Survivalist Faction to make those judgments.

Once it was time to entertain questions, the panel members were in no mood to remain relaxed.

Master Xena Wintress immediately asked a thorny question.

"Since genetic aptitude is irrelevant, what about race? Is it possible to develop a version of the Carmine System that is designed to allow aliens to pilot mechs without any technological restrictions? What measures can you take or have already taken that can prevent your work from getting abused by the aliens?"

Ves truly hadn't thought about that. He had always assumed that the aliens were unlikely to make good use of mechs due to the lack of working neural interfaces for their respective species.

However, a disruptive technology such as the Carmine system could easily change!

"I... have never attempted to do this before." Ves slowly responded. "I can try it once I return to my fleet after this conference. My preliminary judgment is that it is plausible."

11 11

That was another heavy revelation. Mechs were one of the biggest advantages of red humanity.

It would be devastating if the aliens managed to get on par with the red humans with the help of this alternate control method!

Master Wintress looked as if she didn't mind this, but the same could not be said for the Mace of Retaliation and Master Goldstein!

Both of them entertained a lot of valid concerns. Once the threshold to pilot a mech had dropped, it became a lot more likely that the aliens might be able to find a way to take command of a mech!

"I have a question of my own." The Mace of Retribution spoke up. "The effects of the Carmine System that you have described sounds similar to the first stage of the Mech Body Merger Process. Is it plausible that forming the Blood Pact is actually a method to complete this stage well in advance?"

"Uh..."