The Mech Touch novel Chapter 6982

After Ves gave an explanation about his latest creation, he proceeded to put it through its paces.

He used his special connection with his masterwork to possess the partial superdimensional alloy body and proceeded to control it with great familiarity and fluency.

How could Ves not understand how cats moved?

His companion spirit Blinky was a cat.

He also already had Veronica for a few years.

If he was a mech pilot, then he would have done everything in his power to tiger mech!

The tests he set up were relatively rudimentary, but they served as barely acceptable props to showcase Ferrum's powerful capabilities.

When the new cat activated his stealth systems, he became virtually undetectable at longer distances and was still damn hard to pick up at closer distances.

Unfortunately, the active stealth system supplemented with Solus plating was not completely infallible, but nothing was ever perfect.

Ferrum was incredibly scary when engaged in combat. Numerous armed dummies fell after getting struck by transphasic fire laser beams.

The thin but fiery hot beams penetrated the relatively ordinary armor of the bots and quickly burned and vaporized the internals.

"The accuracy leaves much to be desired." Casella commented as she witnessed Ferrum haphazardly winding his tail from one direction to another. "It is not advisable for this feline machine to employ this weapon system when he is deployed alongside friendly units. This tail weapon can easily rake them by accident."

"You try controlling a precision laser weapon with your tail, then! This is completely different from holding a pistol in your hand!"

Gloriana frowned at the unreliable display. "Why did you not integrate the laser weapon in a more convenient location such as the head, the paws or the side of the body?"

"There's no room!" Ves answered. "I had to stuff a lot of tech in a tiny cat-sized body. Sure, I could have made Ferrum larger, but that not only uses up more superdimensional matter, but also makes him more conspicuous and harder to hide. I chose to maintain a compact size and stuff as much tech as I can get away with. The tail happens to be a limb that facilitates balance for quadruped lifeforms, but it can be more than a simple chain of interlinking parts."

In fact, if Ves really needed to, he could still mount a miniaturized luminar crystal weapon on another part of Ferrum's body, but he simply didn't feel like it. He wanted to integrate it into the tail and that was the end of the story as far as he was concerned.

Gloriana obviously understood this truth, but she only gave him a measured look. She did not bother to argue the point.

She understood the eternal truth that boys would always be boys.

At least Ves had not made the most outrageous and juvenile choice of turning a certain other limb into a miniature luminar crystal weapon.

The weapon tests involving the claws turned into a spectacle as well. Ves was much more skilled in controlling Ferrum's limbs. The mechanical cat avatar swiped the enemy dummies and static targets with enough grace to look natural.

Even Lucky looked impressed by how easily the new cat was able to cut through energy shields and armor plating with ease.

The bite attacks were also lethal. None of the dummies had any chance of saving themselves once Ferrum latched on and bit them into pieces!

However, there was one major problem related to his arsenal.

"His claws and teeth are so short." Gloriana noted. "They are deadly alright, but they extend so little from their base that it takes time to cut through thick walls."

Ves shrugged. "It can't be helped. I can make the claws longer, but that will make it much more troublesome to store them safely inside his own body. It also takes significantly more weapon-grade superdimensional matter. That goes against my intentions. One of the reasons why I kept Ferrum small is to make him disposable. If the native aliens ever kills him or has prevented us from retrieving him, then I can readily abandon him without feeling too much pain."

Any quantity of superdimensional matter was precious at this stage, but so little of it was used to make Ferrum that the Larkinson Clan could still bear this loss.

"Will it be difficult to create a replacement for Ferrum?" Saint Dise asked.

"Not really. I won't be able to create an identical copy of him, as he was always meant to be a unique existence. However, I will be able to create a similar mechanical avatar that possesses his own unique quirks and features. Masterworks are never meant to be commodities, but there is no rule that states that I have to start from scratch every time. As long as my intention and sincerity are good enough, then it is not too difficult to create a series of masterworks based on a common template."

Gloriana and Alexa nodded their heads in understanding. They both knew about this subject to understand his argument.

"I am not too concerned." Ves dismissively waved his hand. "My Spirituality is notably stronger than yours or any other Senior Mech Designer. Besides, I am not too obsessed with maintaining a high output of masterworks. That only makes me commoditize them, which is ultimately detrimental to my craftsmanship."

The magic of masterworks had to be preserved. Quality had to come before quantity.

Alexa decided to ask her own question. "Do you think that works that reach a level of quality above masterwork may demand the creator sacrifice a greater amount of power to fuel its transcendence?"

Both Ves and Gloriana exchanged glances.

"We don't have to worry about that for a long, long time." Ves eventually replied. "For what it is worth, I think you have raised a very great point. I think your theory is plausible enough to be true. It may be the reason why we have never heard anyone below the rank of Master Mech Designer having created anything that can be classified as a grand work. It may also be one of the hidden challenges that they must overcome in order to ascend to the rank of Star Designer!"

Ves had no idea whether this was true, but it made too much sense.

He knew the approximate spiritual strength of Master Mech Designers.

He also met a few Star Designers in person and became overwhelmed by how much stronger and more encompassing they had become.

Comparing a Master Mech Designer and a Star Designer was like comparing a campfire to a forest blaze!

The latter probably possessed plenty of power to fuel the creation of a grand work.

What about the former? It would definitely exhaust itself half to death just to create a single grand work!

If this was the case, then a lot of Master Mech Designers must be working hard to grow the size and strength of their 'campfires' as much as possible.

Not only did they have to make it strong enough to feed the voracious appetites of their possible grand works, but they also had to build up enough of a safety margin to preserve their lives if they failed to break through!

All of that took a lot of time and effort. If all of this happened to be correct, then that would explain why so many Master Mech Designers languished for hundreds of years without making the ultimate jump of their careers!