The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4782

Chapter 4782 Crystal Interface

Ves became incredibly engrossed in his latest project.

Despite the dire circumstances surrounding him and his fellow clansmen, he had always believed in his heart that he could resolve every problem by engineering the right solution at the right time.

Shooting his way out of problems was not the most ideal way to overcome an obstacle. Rather than heading to the upper levels and risk falling into a trap or a fortified position prepared by the abductors of so many important stakeholders of Davute, he much preferred to use his own advantages to take control of the environment and turn the tables against his current opponents!

He worked with haste as he employed the limited but fairly powerful capabilities of the compact minifab module that he had mounted on his back.

Despite the relative bulk of this highly sophisticated and relatively fragile field production and repair equipment suite, Ves rarely kept it separated from his Unending Regalia, even in a packed form.

He had designed and fabricated several other useful backpack modules over the years. From a powerful flight system that could allow him to soar in the skies like a bird to a large high-capacity battery that was solely designed to power an incredibly powerful shoulder-mounted luminar crystal cannon, he created all kinds of options that could be handy in different situations.

He never really used them, though. Ves mostly appreciated the ability to fabricate or repair anything in a given location as long as it held enough materials for him to engineer a viable solution.

Though he spent a notable amount of years in Davute in total peace and comfort, he had never really let down his guard. Not truly, at least.

His honor guard always made sure to keep his Unending Regalia close at hand, and it always came with the minifab module as the default attachment.

Ves wanted to have the power to create by his side at all times. He wanted to make sure that if he ever got stranded on a nameless planet, he would have the essential tools to build the tools to build the tools and production equipment that could be used to fabricate a shuttle that could get him back to civilized space one way or another.

In any case, even though he hadn't actually made any use of his minifab module over the years, he showed little hesitation or lack of fluency in his operations.

Of course, his minifab's many tools were mainly geared towards working with conventional technology. They did not provide him with the equipment needed to work with crystals.

He was unable to conduct many operations he needed to repair the alien crystal interface properly.

He also lacked the knowledge and expertise to restore the alien systems to a semblance of their former selves.

Fortunately, the crystals themselves hadn't decayed that much despite the lengthy passage of time. Ves knew that the biggest advantage to crystal-based electronic systems was that they were exceptionally hard and resistant to shocks and other damage. They were so solid that laying dormant for over 100,000 years hardly caused them to deteriorate, especially when they were built to last!

Of course, even crystal-based electronics could not escape the ravages of time. It depended on the complexity and other factors. Since the control interface consisted of relatively simple clusters of processing and control-based crystals, the deterioration was not as great as with the energy shield generators a few floors down below.

The fact that the latter remained operational all of this time was also a testament to the advantages of crystal-based electronics.

Not everything was great, though. Crystals were a bit more troublesome to produce and even harder to repair. It was hard to implement proper functioning automatic repair systems into them because they were so solid and rigid.

Right now, Ves had to mend many crystals that had been smashed by a hammer or another blunt object.

Whoever wrecked this a long time ago did not do the courtesy of creating clean breaks.

Instead, numerous crystals got chipped or smashed into dozens of ugly shards.

Ves quickly had to examine and judge whether these crystals were worth saving. He dismissed over half of the crystals this way.

"The amount of available crystals is not that great to begin with." Helena noted. "Is it truly alright to dismiss so many of them? What if you do not have enough to access the control system?"

"It is alright, sister. I do not need to restore the whole control system. This place was originally built to control much if not all of the possible operations that take place in the prison facility. We don't need to gain that much control. From the clues that we have gathered, the Illustrious One and I suspect that this interface is built with modularity and compartmentalization in mind. Every crystal is a self-contained control mechanism that is tied to a specific prison system."

"That... is an odd approach to design computer systems." Helena remarked.

"Aliens always come up with new and inventive ways to tackle different technological problems. "He leaned over and pointed to the empty hexagonal sockets that happened to resemble the honeycombs of beehives. "Look at how these sockets are designed, for example. Anyone can easily pull in and pull out as many crystals as they want. Do you know the implications of this? Not all, but many of these crystals simultaneously serve as access keys. They are all designed to be slotted in and out with ease. I can imagine that the prison warden and senior security officers carry the most important crystals on their person while the lower-ranking guards can only control less important systems."

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