The Mech Touch

Although the Larkinson Clan had to pay an exceedingly high price to purchase and ship a batch of extremely valuable first-class exotics from the Zelmar Upper Zone, their effects were far too strong and useful to pass over!

When the mech designers involved in this difficult but increasingly more promising expert stealth mech started to simulate the performance of the Ghost Project in all kinds of combat and infiltration scenarios, they reacted with both glee and fear.

"Hehehe." Ves grinned as he observed a rerun of a simulated mission where the Ghost Project sneaked close to the Palace of Shame before activating its Geist System.

The ghostly fiends that emerged from the hidden expert mech completely turned the periphery of the alien asteroid base as well as many of the alien warships in the vicinity into purgatory!

Even after the aliens learned that they had come under attack by a hidden but nefarious enemy, their warships and starfighters failed to detect the Ghost Project in their midst!

The combination of Venerable Zimro Belson's intuition, the emission dampening effect of Emdar Alloy and the cutting-edge Seferath AQ-3M active stealth system, the inadequate sensor systems of the indigenous alien races had no way of detecting the Ghost Project!

The only measure that could stop the Ghost Project from attacking sensitive areas and the more interior portions of the Palace of Shame was solid transphasic energy shields, but even that was not a guarantee of safety.

This was because the fiends under the Ghost Project's control could theoretically bypass every obstacle, no matter whether they were energy shields or many meters of thick materials!

Although Ves did not have a solid idea how far these fiends empowered by true resonance were able to move away from their source, he did not expect them to be able to move too far away.

The Geist System was both their source of strength and the tether that kept them in control. If the spiritual specters were able to exceed their range limitations, then that meant that they had lost a lot of power but also became completely free and unrestrained!

For now, Ves assumed that ghosts such as Mephisto the Firstborn could only move a few hundred meters away at most.

Still granted the Ghost Project a lot of capacity for destruction, but it was not enough to infiltrate and sabotage large fortifications and capital ships so long as they kept up their energy shields.

Even so, the expert stealth mech in its current form already represented a terror off the battlefield!

"Imagine what it can do to the Friday Colonies." Gloriana gasped as she pulled up a graph that displayed how much damage it could do if it was left unchecked in a star system. "As long as we pair it up with a stealth carrier, the Ghost Project can ruin entire planets over the course of a week, maybe several if there are a lot of settlements. So long as our opponents do not have powerful detection methods, a single expert stealth mech can do anything from assassinating key leaders, sabotaging expert mechs when they are dormant and destroying key infrastructural targets. The Fridaymen's ambitions in the new frontier could be brought to heel with the power of a single expert mech!"

That was an outrageous story and one that Ves did not look keen on realizing.

"Please do not go overboard and exaggerate the Ghost Project's impunity, Gloriana. Our Ghost Project remains highly effective as long as we use it sparingly. The more it is used, the more it exposes its capabilities to our enemies. Its mystery will be gone and our foes will prepare more adequate countermeasures in order to guard against another attack. This upcoming asset of ours is best served as a hidden blade rather than an obvious hammer."

Master Benedict Cortez nodded his head. "I agree with your husband. The deterrence factor is far more useful than its actual implementation. It is enough to expose its existence and give your enemies a hint of what it can do. That is enough to make your rivals and enemies fear your retaliation."

His words rang true to Ves. Just because the Larkinson Clan invested a huge amount of time, money and resources into designing and building a lot of mechs did not mean that they wanted to throw them into battle non-stop!

The Larkinson Clan grew quickly because it was able to accumulate a lot of strength in times of rest and loot a lot of bountiful spoils in times of action!

Ves did not believe that his clan would be able to do nearly as well if it committed heavily to one or the other.

The same dynamic applied to the use of the Ghost Project. If he and his clan had to employ it against others on a non-stop basis, then something had gone terribly wrong!

"Even if I had a reason to take action against the Friday Colonies, I wouldn't be foolish enough to do what you have described." Ves told Gloriana. "Our Ghost Project may theoretically be able to circumvent the vast majority of detection methods, but the Seferath AQ-3M is not infallible, you know. Optaar Integrated Systems has warned me that there are first-class detection systems that can overpower its active stealth measures as long as they are fed with lots of energy. The Fridaymen can also call upon their ace pilots to hunt down our stealth asset."

It would be game over once an ace mech found a trail and managed to sniff out the Ghost Project!

All of the damage amplification bestowed by Denissium Maximum would not help at all at this point!

There were ways to make the Ghost Project even deadlier than now, but there were two reasons why that was not a good choice.

The Ghost Project was already extravagant enough to stretch the definition of a quasi-first-class expert mech.

Once his clan started to apply qualitative improvements such as upgrading its power reactor, then the MTA would forcibly reclassify it as a first-class expert mech.

Ves would no longer be able to use it in the middle zones without getting into a lot of trouble!

Another reason why he and his fellow mech designers could not make any substantial improvements was because Venerable Zimro Belson could not effectively make use of the additions.

As Ves and the others continually applied one improvement after another on the expert mech design, it increased the depth of the Ghost Project to an unreasonable degree.

There was no way that Venerable Zimro would be able to effectively utilize more than 30 percent of its capabilities from the start!

His lack of experience and more importantly his insufficient resonance strength heavily limited how much performance he could leverage out of his excessively strong expert mech.

There were good reasons why low-tier expert pilots were paired with low-tier expert mechs at the start.

It was the most economical approach. It enabled expert pilots to develop their powers and extraordinary techniques step by step without getting overwhelmed or lost.

However, this was way too slow and inefficient for Ves. His clan pursued quality over quantity and couldn't afford to leave the potential of its talents untapped.

Perhaps it may be unfair for the Larkinson Clan to pile up so many expectations and responsibilities on a recently promoted expert pilot, but the Red Ocean was too dangerous to do anything less.

"Are you sure you are not overhyping the threat of the Geist System?" Cormaunt Hempkamp said as he studied the data relating to its estimated performance parameters. "I mean, they are unstoppable and all, but it is not as if they can deploy an entire army of ghosts. According to your estimates, each fiend won't actually be able to deal much damage when they are activated."

"That is correct." Ves nodded. "The Geist System tries to add physical substance to immaterial life forms, but I don't think that the willpower of two different demigods is enough to turn them into powerhouses, at least not at the beginning. Object 335 is a static power source for all intents and purposes, so the only ways to strengthen the Geist System is by cultivating its spiritual fiends or stimulate the growth of Venerable Zimro's resonance strength."

"What about increasing the quantity of these so-called fiends?" Master Benedict asked an important question.

"I think that the power of the Geist System will become dispersed to a degree." Ves frowned and answered. "It is still better to deploy multiple weaker fiends than to concentrate power in a single one of them, but this is all based on theory and assumptions. We will have to fabricate the Ghost Project and test it out in reality to be sure."

The simulation results were highly dubious and could not be relied upon. Ves had run the simulations anyway because he wanted to gain a more visual and concrete impression of what his expert stealth mech could do when let loose.

No matter whether the simulations were close to the truth or wildly inaccurate, Ves saw little reason to become disappointed with his work.

No matter what, even the more pessimistic estimates of the Ghost Project's performance already exceeded his minimum expectations!

"Do you know how much damage a proper first-class version of the Ghost Project can do?" Miles Tovar finally spoke up and shared his concerns. "The first-raters would probably kill to obtain the Geist System. This innovation of yours is too powerful and subversive. So long as the mech industry has yet to develop a proper counter against it, the most powerful first-class stealth mechs that are armed with the Geist System can throw our entire society into disarray."

His fears caused the other mech designers to frown.

Each of them were smart enough to envision this scenario. The only reason why they hadn't raised the topic was because they were too reluctant to turn the breaks on the Ghost Project.

Nonetheless, they all needed to address this topic sooner or later.

Ves looked at everyone in the eyes. "The confidentiality of our Ghost Project should remain high, I think. I have not allowed any of our design teams to touch upon the truly important elements of the Ghost Project. I haven't even mentioned a single word of the Geist System or shown off the design of our expert stealth mech to our external consultants either. This may have slowed down our progress, but the confidentiality of our project should remain secure."

"I don't believe our Ghost Project is as hidden as you think it is." Master Benedict warned.

There was no way to completely stop the snooping of the Mech Trade Association. A mech design as sensitive and innovative as the Ghost Project aroused the interest of the mechers like nothing else!

"We can't do anything about it." Ves simply shrugged. "There is no way for us to keep up the confidentiality of the Ghost Project forever. The best we can hope for is that its secrets will not spread out too much during the time where we need to rely on its capabilities the most. Besides, I highly doubt that anyone can reproduce the Geist System due to its specific requirements. Don't forget that its core consists of Object 335. I highly doubt that the MTA will permit other groups to decapitate expert pilots en masse only to put their heads on life support before stuffing them inside a lot of expert mechs!"

Even if there were mech designers who were crazy to do that, they still wouldn't be able to reproduce the Geist System. They lacked the ability to create spiritual fiends like Ves.

Without the presence of these unfriendly ghosts, the incomplete Geist System was nothing but a glorified life support box!