5419 Race Against Time
It was impossible for the Devos Ancient Clan to miss the large and violent storm forming in the skies above New Constantinople VIII.
The dark and unnaturally powerful lightning storm covered a significant chunk of the surface of the planet!
Not only that, but the storm did not behave anything like a normal one, but instead discharged much of its concentrated energies at a single location.
It did not take much snooping to figure out what the storm was targeting.
"It's the aliens! We are being attacked by the aliens!"
"Our defense forces should be trying to blow these dark clouds away with explosives. We can't let them spread any further!"
"I know that place! The aliens have employed exotic weather technology to assassinate our guest professor. We need to send in our rapid responders to evacuate our honored galactic citizens right away!"
"Why are we not allowed to sortie? There is an emergency taking place outside. It is our duty as Terrans to respond to any disasters that take place within our jurisdiction. We are violating our oaths if we stay in our places."
"My apologies, captain, but these orders come straight from above. The Red Association has taken over all responsibility for this affair. The mechers have strictly prohibited us from approaching the storm clouds."
Not many local Terrans understood what was unfolding. They found it inexplicable that the Devos Ancient Clan had made no move to address the strange anomaly that had swept the skies of one of their most important planets.
However, a select few leaders had better awareness of what was taking place.
In the upper floor of an office building located inside the campus of the Eden Institute, Master Laila Rebecca Devos stared at the distant storm clouds with an expression that conveyed both astonishment and interest.
"This storm..."
As an esteemed Master Mech Designer from one of the oldest and most traditional ancient clans of Terra, Master Laila roughly knew what it took to trigger this kind of phenomenon.
It was not completely unheard of for an anomalous thunderstorm to occur, but they were so rare that the vast majority of people remained ignorant of what it represented.
Though Master Laila had become repeatedly impressed by the young new professor that her school had been fortunate enough to employ, she never expected him to be able to trigger such a vast and powerful storm at this stage in his career!
"He is just a Senior..." She uttered in a disbelieving tone. "Even if he is a seasoned masterwork mech designer, there is still a huge gap to reaching this threshold."
Ves Larkinson had already broken the assumptions that governed their profession once or twice. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise for him to be able to do it again, especially since the Devos Ancient Clan had already deduced that he had access to an extraordinary heritage!
Still, the Devosans were in a similar position, but the people that had received the right to study the digital scans of those ancient and forgotten tomes had barely managed to decipher the overly cryptic words and archaic phrases that obfuscated their meaning.
It took a lot more research to convert the wisdom of the ancients into practical inventions and applications!
This was why Master Laila valued the young professor more and more.
The event unfolding in front of her caused her to step up her plans to deepen her ancient clan's relationship with the talented mech designer.
"Perhaps we should offer our guest an opportunity to teach a class related to hyper technology."
Professor Ves Larkinson clearly had a lot more wisdom to share if he was capable of triggering such a large-scale event.
Meanwhile, Alexa Streon tried her best to keep her emotions in check as she witnessed an extraordinary event of great import unfolding right outside of Diandi Base!
The calamitous storm clouds above everyone's heads had repeatedly thrown down lightning bolt after lightning bolt after a mech that had drawn their fury.
The unerring accuracy and target fixation of these lightning bolts clearly indicated that this was anything but a natural weather event.
Her observations supported this conclusion.
Her naked eyes did not reveal anything too unnatural, but her companion spirit's senses easily observed the huge amount of energies clashing against each other!
CRACK!
"Myah! Myah!"
The spiritual ragdoll cat looked frightened as her senses clearly caught a huge torrent of destructive energy slamming against the defenses of the new Fey Project!
The newly constructed mech for its part did not receive the attack without any preparation.
Instead, Maia was able to observe the extraordinary mech working to shape and control the energies related to the elements of metal and earth.
The modified Fey Project did not demonstrate any particular skill or direction at first. It was only later that the machine started to work more purposefully with the energies that came from the environment.
The E energies attributed towards metal constantly filled up the main mech frame in an attempt to amplify its defenses.
This was similar to how regular hyper technology worked, but Alexa knew that the newly fabricated mech should not contain enough metal-attributed hyper materials to take in so much energy.
She knew this because she had assisted Ves in the fabrication of his spontaneously redesigned drone mech!
"How?"
What she was witnessing broke the rules that she had learned in her studies on hyper technology.
What was more remarkable was the way in which the new mech had begun to make use of all of the earth energy.
The mech channeled a part of this energy into itself, boldly forcing it to crash and merge with the prevailing metal energy.
Metal and earth energies shared a well-known synergistic relationship that had been officially registered in the Red Association's database.
However, most hyper tech applications related to combining these two elemental forces usually had to be designed and built in advance.
Alexa knew for certain that the Fey Project did not contain any mixed parts or systems of that nature, but it was somehow able to harness the two distinct energies through conscious manipulation!
It actually reminded her a lot of how the Ouroboros was able to combine the power of creation and destruction to produce special compound effects.
The difference was that the Ouroboros was a powerful ace mech, while the new Fey Project was just supposed to be a standard mech!
The latter shouldn't have been able to manipulate these kinds of energies in such a freehand manner, but the new Fey Project somehow managed to do so with the help of its earth fey.
"Is this the true power of living mechs?" She wondered.
It was impossible for the mech pilot to be able to accomplish this feat. Her work station had extensive access to the telemetry transmitted by the new machine. The resonance meters did not detect any manifestations of true resonance, and Major Simon Jankowski was clearly not a high-ranking mech pilot.
It should have been impossible for a well-trained but purely mortal mech pilot to be able to wield serious amounts of E energies to such a degree!
The only answer that made sense was that the mech was doing the heavy lifting. Alexa was able to corroborate this guess through Maia's observation.
Each time the surrounding E energies tried to accomplish a specific purpose, it was because of the control exerted by the new mech and its fey.
The logic was clear, but that made it so difficult for Alexa to accept.
Before she became familiar with the Larkinsons and their impressive patriarch, the only mech she was familiar with that could perform this feat was the Ouroboros!
Even then, her grandfather and the many archival records of his battles indicated that it took several decades of growth for this initially weak machine to become so powerful at harnessing specific energies.
"This mech is not even more than an hour old..." She whispered to herself.
That was what boggled her mind the most. She learned from Ves that every living mech started out as babies more or less. Even the rare and much more capable third order living mechs were still considered juveniles relative to their lengthy life cycles.
The mech in front of her was clearly supposed to be a third order living mech that had only received a modest boost in aging with the help of her new companion spirit, but even then it should have only become equivalent to an adolescent.
Now, this young and tender mech was already demonstrating the strength and control far beyond its years!
Alexa realized that her new mentor and employer had managed to make a boundary-crossing product.
This was a standard mech that somewhat imitated the capabilities of an expert mech, all without an expert pilot in the cockpit!
If Ves completely mastered the design and fabrication of such an outrageously powerful and cost-effective machine, he would be capable of producing many more copies of this extraordinary drone mech!
With the unprecedentedly large potential and effective combat power demonstrated by this new mech, Ves could easily raise entire troops of 'false expert mechs' that could defeat any opponent with just a fraction of the numbers!
"Such a rule-breaking mech shouldn't exist!" She gasped.
Alexa instinctively figured out why an astonishingly powerful thunderstorm had formed immediately after the mech had reached completion.
Perhaps this was the cosmos taking action to destroy this heretical creation before it could upset the balance of this plain of existence.
All other standard mechs would become obsolete overnight if it was possible to mass produce this kind of miracle!
CRACK!
Another golden lightning bolt shot at the mech from above.
Its power had increased at a worrying rate, causing the previous defensive measures to endure greater stress.
The Fey Project had cleverly manipulated the earth energies to form shabby and malformed lightning rods.
Though the extraordinary lightning bolts did not completely behave as expected, the lightning rods still managed to divert at least a part of the disastrous power, enabling the metal-reinforced mech to withstand the remaining current with greater ease.
However, the Fey Project did not settle for its current solutions, but worked hard to explore newer and more diverse applications of the energies at its disposal.
"Myah."
"Is that... a Faraday cage?"
CRACK!
The attempt to create a grill out of a combination of metal and earth energies looked ingenious, but when a more powerful golden lightning bolt violently made contact with it, the Faraday cage exploded in an instant!
Perhaps the idea was good, but the Fey Project and its pilot were still too inexperienced and lacking skill to succeed in their attempts.
It was a fairly creative idea, though. The mech under duress was already attempting to form a thicker and more solid energy barrier, but the ephemeral and insubstantial nature of E energy made it difficult to shape them into a desired form!
"This is a race against time." She whispered.
The Fey Project was too weak to withstand the unending barrage of lightning bolts by relying on its quasi-first-class mech systems.
Its only chance of survival was to become more proficient at harnessing the power of E energy.
While it was doing a decent job at that so far, the difficulty of mastering more effective applications was much greater!
Would the mech be able to learn these stronger methods quickly enough to make it all the way to the end?
Even Alexa did not dare to be too optimistic!
"Can you produce another miracle, Professor Ves?"
That was the only factor that she could think of that might reverse the current trend.
Whether Ves would be able to subvert everyone's expectations and save his latest work from utter annihilation was still in doubt.
However, she had already learned to never rule out any options when it came to her new patriarch.
That was the only factor that she could think of that might reverse the current trend.
Whether Ves would be able to subvert everyone's expectations and save his latest work from utter annihilation was still in doubt.
However, she had already learned to never rule out any options when it came to her new patriarch.
One of the defining traits of an excellent mech designer was to turn the impossible into a reality.
No matter the outcome of this day, Ves would definitely become known as a mech designer who had broken the boundaries of reality!
