The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1919

Chapter 1919 4.6

If Ves had eyes, they would have widened until they reached the size of dinner plates.

"A dwarf! Of all the humans the System could have chosen in the history of human civilization during the Age of Mechs, it chose a heavy gravity variant human!"

He resisted the urge to bash his consciousness against the walls of Rion's mental walls!

Though the specific variant that House Kantis used to cultivate the dwarves Desolate X was not as extreme as the wildlings of Aeon Corona VII, Ves still couldn't get over the fact that his latest host was a dwarf!

"Goddammit System! Can't you give me someone normal? Rion doesn't even pilot a real mech!"

Though Ves hated the System's decision to put him in the mind of a dwarf, he resented his host's circumstances even more!

Rion Aaden was a dwarf!

On Desala X, that meant he was a miner!

As a slave in all-but-name, Rion never enjoyed proper schooling. He never attended a mech academy. He never received proper instruction from an experienced and seasoned mech instructor.

"He hasn't even piloted a single mech in his entire life!"

So what made him eligible to become the host of Ves' latest Mastery experience?

His simulator pod!

Ves disdained the poor excuse of a pod the resistance movement salvaged from somewhere and managed to make it functional again.

The simulator pod was at least useful in estimating the approximate time period of this Mastery experience.

So far, Ves hadn't been able to glean a lot of clues of his current setting. House Kantis strictly controlled the information supplied to the dwarves in order to make them as pliable as possible.

It was a lot easier to control a population of ignorant sheep than clever monkeys!

All Rion knew about his location was what the rebel dwarves had mentioned to him in passing.

Ves gleaned the basic circumstances of the Smiling Samual Star Sector and the Paramount Kingdom.

Both of them were in decline. For a time, it barely had anything going for it except for the modest deposits of slightly-valuable exotics.

Then these valuable exotics ran out. The humans living in states like the Paramount Kingdom destructively extracted as much value as possible to fuel their decadence and wasteful spending.

Now, there was hardly anything to smile about in this poor and forgotten star sector in the galactic rim.

There was one very relevant detail about Smiling Samuel though. When the rebels once showed Rion a galactic map in order to emphasize how small they were compared to the scale of human civilization, Ves discovered that this star sector was not that far from his own!

Certainly, Ves would have to travel through several star clusters in order to reach Smiling Samuel, but it was very much possible to reach it within a year on a very fast ship!

He mentally shook his head. This was no time to think about the possibility of meeting his Mastery hosts in the flesh.

His goal was to learn the essence of piloting a light skirmisher from the perspective of a mech pilot. He really didn't need anything more out of this than a thorough understanding of how a skilled mech pilot made the most out of piloting a light skirmisher.

As soon as Rion booted up the simulator pod, the dwarf didn't have that much to choose from aside from the preinstalled scenarios loaded into its databanks.

The pod didn't possess a connection to the galactic net.

In the time since Rion first trained with the pod, he first learned the ropes by going through the virtual training sessions.

Every simulator pod came loaded with a basic but foolproof virtual training program by default. This allowed potentates who weren't able to attend a mech academy for some reason or another to self-study their way into becoming a mech pilot!

Of course, that didn't mean that physical mech academies had lost their value. Ves knew that a true academy was countless times more effective in teaching mech cadets than a low-quality virtual training program!

Any mech pilot who emerged from a cheap virtual training program always became a bottom-feeder pirate or gang member!

This was because their poor and irregular piloting foundation was too worthless in the eyes of more respectable employers!

"Urgh! What is this performance? Does Rion even know how to pilot a mech at all? He's making a complete mockery of light mechs!"

The training scenario Rion selected first was a simple arena duel. The dwarf entered the virtual cockpit of a generic landbound light skirmisher armed with two knives.

His opponent? A heavy mech of all choices!

Theoretically, light mechs were supposed to counter heavy mechs. If the latter was not a striker mech, then the light mech could easily run rings around the lumbering machine and stab through the weak points that didn't require as much force to damage!

Though heavy mechs were often regarded as invulnerable shells that should never boast any weaknesses, Ves knew very well that heavy mechs often exhibited a lot of holes in their defense.

Every mech exhibited such vulnerabilities, especially on their rear!

A skilled mech pilot and a swift and agile light skirmisher were therefore capable of neutralizing a mech that was at least four times heavier and more expensive!

Therefore, it was very much worthwhile to dispatch light mechs to close in and disable these huge and sluggish mechs.

Even if more light mechs fell than heavy mechs, it was still a worthwhile sacrifice!

It was no surprise that the main rationale for light mechs was how cheap they were. Lighter and smaller than other mechs, they cost less expensive materials to build.

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