The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

The decoy function exploded everyone's interest in the Fey Fianna!

The product suddenly became a lot more attractive once people found out that the fey could do more than fire weapons or form energy shields!

It was not as if those primary functions were weak or worthless, but these were already jobs that other mechs could already fulfill.

In other words, a mech force did not actually gain a lot of new capabilities after adding the Fey Fianna to their lineup. They just received a bunch of odd machines that could control a lot of smaller machines to do the same stuff as usual.

While the product reveal had made it clear that the fey possessed nuances that made them better in many situations, they still failed to introduce anything that was radically new and different.

That changed when the fey showed that they could imitate mechs well enough to fool enemy sensor systems!

Of course, the decoys were not entirely realistic. Their lack of mass and the imperfections inherent to a compact projection system made it so that powerful or advanced enough sensors could expose their true nature.

That said, it was not that easy to detect which was real and which was false in most field conditions.

It was a lot more difficult to determine that the projected mechs were decoys at medium to longer distances. This was usually where alien warships tended to kill a lot of mechs. Anything that could divert their firepower was helpful to any mech force!

Another factor was that the decoy function differed in effectiveness depending on the version of the Fey Fianna.

The Standard Fey Fianna was made out of cheaper tech and materials. Ves and his fellow mech designers had to cross out a lot of items on their wish list in order to make their design reasonable and practical enough.

The emissions of the ordinary fey were quite decent, but nothing exceptional when compared to similar systems that were available to other mech designs.

The same limitations did not apply to the Elite Fey Fianna. Made out of higher grades of exotics, hypers, tech and more, the quasi-first-class fey contained a lot of tech that reached the limit of what a second-class product was able to bear!

The projected appearance and the various emissions produced by the fey were much more realistic. Sensor systems had to work a lot harder in order to determine whether they were true or false.

Even though these differences were impossible to detect by laymen, there were plenty of mech insiders who had their own ways of detecting these differences.

Ves had yet to explain the characteristics of the Elite Edition of the Fey Fianna, but the various displays already showed that they were much better than the Standard Edition.

Unfortunately, only a small quantity of potential customers possessed the qualifications to buy the Elite Fey Fiannas, but they usually stuck to using mechs produced by themselves or their long-time partners.

The LMC did not expect to receive many orders for the Elite Edition, at least when it had yet to prove its true worth on the battlefield.

This was also why Ves did not bother to elaborate on the Elite Edition. The Standard Edition was much more attainable to the majority of mech buyers.

In any case, the event had reached the next phase.

What people truly wanted to see was not the Fey Fianna when it was being piloted by an individual who only came into contact with it for the first time.

They wanted to see the performance of the Fey Fianna at its height. They wanted to see it piloted by those who possessed actual experience in controlling drone mechs. They wanted to see the performance of the Fey Fianna that had already grown for enough years to become powerhouses in their own right!

It was impossible for Ves to realize their dreams in full. None of these conditions were easy to accomplish.

That did not mean that it was futile to try.

In the month after he decided to hold a product reveal on Bortele III, the Larkinson Clan had done its best to do what was necessary to allow the Fey Fiannas to display their greater potential.

When the first batch of Fey Fiannas finished production at the local mech factory, the clan assigned them to the few Larkinson mech pilots with existing drone mech experience.

None of them were dedicated specialists that had mastered the Sparrow Storm and could control 64 Sparrows like individual birds.

Such mech pilots tended to be trained and nurtured into lifelong soldiers by specialized mech armies.

Even if these mech pilots were looking to change their jobs, they would not join the Larkinson Clan due to the lack of drone mechs in its mech roster.

The only drone mech pilots that the Larkinson Clan was able to gather in the short term were those who merely dabbled in drone mechs and a handful of new recruits.

That was already sufficient as far as Ves was concerned.

The difficulty of piloting even the most basic version of the Sparrow Storm was several times greater than the Fey Fianna.

Ves made a gesture that prompted six of the Fey Fiannas to step forward. The three Standard Fey Fianna formed a single team while the Elite Fey Fianna formed another team.

Each team was accompanied by 12 fey each, and their composition was mixed and balanced for the time being.

The most handsome and powerful Larkinson Fey Fianna did not join the rest. They simply turned around and left the arena grounds.

It was enough for the Larkinsons to show off their exclusive edition of this mech line. Ves did not actually want these Fey Fianna to reveal too much too soon. No matter how much they restrained their performance, mech designers would always find a way to detect a lot of clues and form a lot of accurate estimations.

"Now, I am sure you have been waiting to see how our Fey Fianna will perform as a team and under the control of more skilled mech pilots. The people who are sitting the cockpits of these 6 machines are all part-time drone mech pilots. Their fundamentals and their experience are much stronger. Aside from that, they have already trained with their Fey Fiannas for several weeks on end. They have worked hard to deepen their control over their drone mechs as much as possible in order to give you a preview of what Fey Fiannas can truly do with a bit of effort."

In order to make the upcoming demonstrations more realistic, the Larkinsons no longer deployed any projected mechs or disposable battle bots.

An entire squad of ranged mechs showed up this time!

This was a generic lineup of 12 identical hyper rifleman mechs. The model of the mech was not important. It was enough to know that they were pretty sound if lacking in any distinctive qualities. Even their hyper laser rifles closely matched the template released by the Red Association.

Even so, the opposing squad had twice as many mechs than their adversaries!

The only factor that made this comparison a bit unfavorable for the rifleman mechs was that none of them reached the standard of a quasi-first-class mech.

There was an easy way to balance this matchup.

Only one team entered this fight!

The Standard Fey Fiannas began to move forward while the Elite Fey Fiannas deliberately back away.

"Does anyone dare to bet which side will win?" Ves playfully asked. "I know what it looks like. 3 mechs are unlikely to defeat 12 mechs. Something questionable has to happen in order for the outnumbered side to win. I can promise you that the Fey Fiannas will not be cheating in this demonstration match. The mechs will be fighting at each other at full power. The mech pilots of the rifleman mechs are all skilled and reputable mercenaries who are entitled to win massive prizes if they succeed in beating my Standard Fey Fianna. Under all of these conditions, even I cannot say for certain whether my work will win this match."

The situation was not as lopsided as it looked as rifleman mechs were not the best choice to fight against drone mechs. The former usually found it difficult to eliminate a lot of individual fey.

However, rifleman mechs were usually capable of sniping drone mechs directly on open terrain!

"Fight!"

That was exactly what happened at this time!

The experienced and motivated mercenary mech pilots all commanded their machines to split up and engage in independent movements.

At the same time, the mechs all aimed their rifles at the Fey Fiannas and opened fire while on the move!

The 3 Fey Fiannas did not remain still.

From the moment this match had begun, the Fey Fianna split up and covered themselves in energy shields produced by their only defensive fey!

The shields immediately took damage, but just like before, fire laser beams failed to display their full damage potential against water-attributed energy shields.

"Those energy shields look a lot differently."

"What are those projections?"

"These energy shields are much better at resisting damage than the one we have seen before!"

Even though the Fey Fiannas in the field were identical to the one piloted by Commander Powell, their actual performance deviated quite a lot!

The main cause of this was that the mech pilots and the living mechs were able to utilize E energy to amplify the performance of their energy shields a lot better!

As the Fey Fiannas tried to block the incoming damage as best as possible, the mechs stuck close to their energy shield fey and actually combined forces with each other!

It was difficult for a single fey to attract a lot of water-attributed E energy from the environment. This was why the main body also pitched in. Their defenses all happened to be based on water energy as well, so they could easily work together with a fey of the same attribute!

That was not all. The dominant spirits and the subordinate spirits were all a few weeks old. They had become a lot more proficient on how to manipulate E energy to produce specific outcomes.

The mech pilots also spent weeks of time cooperating with their living mechs. The power of a cooperating human contributed a lot.

The most visible consequence of all of the improvements was that the energy shield fey utilized more advanced and effective methods to strengthen their defenses!

The energy shield fey consciously formed their own artistic conceptions and cultivated them with the hopes of fulfilling their roles a lot better!

Every subordinate spirit was free to cultivate whichever way it liked. Neither Ves nor anyone else had imposed any restrictions on them. Their existence was so new that no optimal methods and solutions had emerged.

One of the energy shield fey visualized a hurricane. This was a step up from a whirlpool. Not only did it create a much larger and more three-dimensional energy manifestation, but it was also a lot better at dispersing the energy of all incoming attacks!

This happened to be especially effective against energy beam attacks!

Much of their potency came from the fact that they were able to concentrate their power.

The impressive miniature hurricane that formed over the energy shield could not do much to neutralize the power of the incoming beam, but scattered it to a small extent.

That might not sound like much, but it was enough to reduce the strain on an energy shield by a significant margin.

The fey only had weeks of time to form and strengthen its artistic conception, but the fact that it was able to do this much was shocking to a hidden group of observers!

Those who enjoyed sufficient access to the legacy of ancient cultivators saw that the defensive fey delivered a performance that exceeded the current boundaries of hyper technology!

They effectively gained the power of a qi cultivator and utilized it in an effective way!

This was a sight that could not produced by any other hyper mech released up to this date!