The Mech Touch

There were two additional points of concerns related to the highly anticipated upgrade process of the Amaranto Mark III.

The first one was that Harry Haikkonen had never engaged in any practical work at such a high level in his career.

This was the first time the second-class Journeyman Mech Designer was about to participate in the upgrade of an existing machine into a much more powerful quasi-first-class high-tier expert mech!

The Amaranto Mark III was actually already a first-class ace mech for the most part. Even the old set of resonating exotics had been replaced with more powerful ace mech-grade alternatives.

As long as Venerable Davia Stark successfully managed to break through, it shouldn't take much work to swap out the power reactor for a much more powerful version and make other corresponding adjustments to accommodate the much greater energy output.

These deliberate design choices therefore represented Ves and Gloriana's confidence in Venerable Davia Stark's growth potential.

Of course, there was a considerable possibility that they ended up making the wrong bet.

If Venerable Stark still failed to break through after piloting the Amaranto Mark III in the next few months or years, then Ves and Gloriana may actually have to consider downgrading the Amaranto Mark III in order to better accommodate the needs of the expert pilot!

The Larkinsons wanted to avoid this outcome at all cost, so a lot was riding on this upgrade process.

It didn't help that there was a second complication that might negatively affect the outcome of this upgrade run.

Due to pressing obligations related to the Red Tide Offensive and other unforeseen factors, Master Benedict Cortez had no time to travel to New Constantinople and contribute to the fabrication process in person.

This was rather unfortunate as he had integrated the ace mech-grade resonating exotics into the design. He also designed and integrated the Endex System Version 3.0 into a ranged mech that relied heavily on energy weapons to make herself useful in the field.

Fortunately, Master Cortez did what he could by prefabricating the necessary parts that Gloriana and the rest of the design team would probably struggle to make by themselves.

These parts included the customized version of his improved Endex System as well as processed and shaped pieces of resonating exotics that could easily be slotted into a mech frame.

It would have been more ideal for the parts to be made on the spot, but Gloriana could work with the current situation.

"At least Master Benedict put his care and attention into the fabrication of his parts." She commented as she inspected the batch of parts that had been shipped from the expeditionary fleet in advance.

The silver lining of Master Benedict's absence was that there was no one left to challenge Gloriana's authority. She could confidently take the lead in this fabrication run, knowing that every other mech designer would not try to usurp her reign!

Her husband lacked the awareness and ego to do so, and Harry Kaikkonen lacked the competence and courage to even think about taking charge.

This was good. As far as Gloriana was concerned, the Amaranto Mark III had become her baby.

Ves used to claim most of the ownership of the expert rifleman mech. He considered the Amaranto to be one of his passion projects where he got to devise and realize a crazy mech concept.

While that identity still remained true, Gloriana felt she managed to claim the lion's share of the ownership of the updated design this time due to how extensively she worked on reforming the mech frame.

There was hardly anything left from the original mech frame in the latest iteration of the Amaranto.

She replaced the heavily outdated and horrendously thin and fragile mech frame with a slender but much more internally robust archemetal frame.

Although the complexity and production difficulty had risen by a lot, Gloriana believed that her effort was worth it as the Amaranto Mark III could cope a lot better with adverse situations!

She was especially proud of how she successfully managed to combine two hyper materials, Solarium and Divurnas Alloy, into an archemetal frame!

Archetech originally wasn't developed with hyper materials in mind. The arche race were pretty much on the same starting line as red humanity in this regard.

Gloriana had to conduct a lot of research and experimentation to find a way to properly integrate the two high-grade hypers into a complex archemetal frame without producing too much interference or causing accidents.

Even now, she was not completely certain whether her solutions would hold up in reality. She had only been able to test the stability of the integration of these powerful hypers under limited testing conditions.

Everything was a lot more serious when it came to the final outcome. The Amaranto Mark III was designed to perform at a very high level, to the point where she could easily induce excess strain on her energy transmissions systems.

One of the relative shortcomings of the Amaranto Mark III was that Master Benedict Cortez withheld his Magma Vein System, both the original and improved version, on this project.

To be fair, this was not because he was feeling selfish or anything. The Magma Vein System was fundamentally incompatible with archetech because the way they transferred energy from one part to another was drastically different.

The Amaranto Mark III and other archemechs hardly possessed any 'veins', which in this case meant dedicated energy channels.

Instead, energy dynamically flowed from one archemetal block to another without any visible separation to prevent shortcuts and such.

This was because these measures were not necessary for properly designed and fabricated pieces of archemetal.

In any case, Gloriana had no pining for the Magma Vein System. It was already enough that Master Benedict contributed the Endex System Version 3.0.

"I have heard that Master Benedict has made considerable improvements to the utility and performance of his Endex System." Harry Kaikkonen said as he helped to perform a last-minute inspection on the imported parts. "Is it true that there is a small portion of the brain tissue of a greater phase whale inside this module?"

Gloriana nodded. "That is correct. The Endex System is more effective when the organic component is derived from more powerful beings. Venerable Stark had to exchange most of the war merits that she has earned up to this date in order to exchange this precious ingredient from the Red Association, but it is more than worth it. Not only will the Amaranto Mark III gain access to a free energy source that can perpetually recharge the living mech's energy cells, but the more powerful Endex System can also significantly increase the rate of E energy absorption."

Realization dawned upon the Journeyman Mech Designer's face. "I see. The former trait vastly improves the Amaranto Mark III's staying power. She can continue to operate in the field much longer without emptying her energy reserves as long as she slows down her firing rate. The latter trait increases the Amaranto Mark III's burst power. The more energies she can gather and accumulate, the stronger her single-shot damage output."

"That is correct, Harry. One caveat that you have overlooked is that it is difficult for us to use the Endex System Version 3.0 to its full potential without the corresponding Magma Vein System Version 2.0. Having a stronger power source is moot if the mech cannot safely transfer all of the excess to where it is most needed. The Volcanic Outburst Mode would have been especially useful for a highly energy-dependent mech such as the Amaranto. I suspect there will be numerous cases where the new Amaranto has more energy to spare, but cannot safely channel any more of it into her next attack unless Davia Stark is able to control the risks with her willpower."

"I see. The Amaranto Mark III should already run very hot during intensive combat. The Amaranto will radiate so much heat and light from her archemetal frame that this will entirely neutralize the benefit of integrating Solus Gas into the outer layers."

Gloriana shrugged. "Ves insisted on it anyway. He thinks he can turn the Amaranto Mark III into an ambush predator that is exceedingly difficult to detect from a distance. While that may be true, it only ever applies before the first shot. Once the Amaranto Mark III has opened fire for the first time, there is no hope of hiding her presence any further. At that point, Solus Gas becomes a detriment as the Amaranto becomes more powerful when she shines brighter."

This was a bit of anti-synergy that still made her upset to this day. If not for the fact that Venerable Davia Stark insisted on keeping the Solus Gas integration into the design, Gloriana would have reverted its inclusion!

Another half hour passed by as the mech designers completed their final inspections.

When they became completely satisfied that everything was in order, they finally kicked off the fabrication process!

Everyone thoroughly understood their respective roles and responsibilities.

"Maow!"

Alexandria showed up right away. The red feline companion spirit was brimming with energy and immediately began to connect Harry Kaikkonen and Venerable Davia Stark into a common design network with Gloriana.

The Queen Cat deliberately left Ves out this time. She experimentally attempted to pull him into a design network while he was still in Deep Research Mode in the past, but she quickly regretted the experience.

His mind had become so inhuman that Gloriana could not keep up with his thought patterns!

Ves paid no attention to Gloriana's thoughts at all, so there was no point in connecting them to the same design network.

Since it was not possible to work together with Ves like before, Gloriana had already resigned herself to using her hyper-focused husband as an automated bot of sorts.

He could be trusted to fabricate the parts that he worked on himself and understood well. He was also suited to carefully strip down the Amaranto Mark II while making sure to keep the living mech alive.

The other mech designers could easily work around Ves and make sure to complement his own work. Gloriana had meticulously planned out the design schedule to enable this mode of cooperation.

Progress was slow but steady in the first few days.

Gloriana proficiently operated the specialized archemetal production machines, which she especially reconfigured to work with larger quantities of hyper materials.

One of the greater difficulties of working with large quantities of hyper materials was to prevent them from spontaneously attracting lots of E energy.

This was especially an issue when it came to high-grade hypers!

In order to minimize the chance of accidents, the Design Department upgraded the workshop and much of the equipment with materials similar to B-stone to isolate and protect the more delicate and sensitive components.

Selectively making use of Lufa's glow also made the workshop a lot safer, giving Gloriana greater confidence in handling so much more high-grade hypers than almost any mech had utilized before.

There were multiple good reasons why other mech designers weren't crazy enough to form the majority of a mech frame out of hyper materials!

Fortunately, Gloriana had made enough preparations to forestall accidents. She was able to fabricate one archemetal part after another at a consistent level of quality.

She could have done better, but it was difficult for her to do any better with her current level of craftsmanship and her shallow mastery of archetech.

While Gloriana pretty much managed to keep up with her schedule, she noted that Harry was slowly falling behind.
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This was disappointing as she had deliberately put him in more of an assisting duty. His lack of experience was showing, but Gloriana at least became satisfied when she understood that he rarely made the same mistake twice.

At worst, Harry would just have to take shorter breaks in order to make up for lost time.

Other than that, the upgrade process largely proceeded according to Gloriana's expectations.

If this pattern continued, then she did not expect to see any drastic results.

Gloriana just hoped that Ves would remain stable and docile until the end of the fabrication run.