The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6138

After a bit of waiting, the time had finally come for the Elegant Rage to attain her new and complete form as a Woodsap mech.

Although Ves knew that the Red Association intended to upgrade the partially wooden mech into a powerful first-class expert mech that incorporated many of its high-tech design applications, the work that he had done would always remain a permanent fixture to the living machine.

Once the Elegant Rage turned into a Woodsap mech, she would live and die like one. There was no reversing this change, especially once she formed an elemental Blood Pact with Venerable Lanie.

It would have been great if Lanie was present and available to form a Woodsap Pact right away. Ves would have been able to gather a lot of useful data and obtain solid proof that all of the work he put into this experimental concept yielded the desired results.

Unfortunately, Venerable Lanie was still stuck at one of the headquarters of the RA. It would take several months before she was scheduled to complete her physical transformation and studies. Only at that time would Ves gain concrete proof that his invention lived up to his expectations.

Oh well.

Ves still had enough reasons to look forward to this day. He truly did not know what would happen once he completed the final changes, but he already had a feeling that the Elegant Rage may undergo a profound change that he could not predict.

Even if nothing unexpected took place, Ves still had plenty of reasons to look forward to the end result.

Since this may be the only time he would get to work directly on the Elegant Rage, he made sure to update her to the standards of the sixth and latest generation of living mechs.

The Elegant Rage could already be considered a fifth generation living mech, so the only real change that turned her into a sixth generation living mech was the addition of an Ultimate Module.

Ves initially questioned whether it was necessary for the Elegant Rage to obtain an Ultimate Module.

Her foundation was already remarkably strong after her mutation.

Her strange and absurdly effective thorns already fulfilled many of the functions of an Ultimate Module.

However, since Ves was in a position to add an extra trump card to the Elegant Rage at a modest price, he figured he might as well work on an Ultimate Module, or else he would feel he let Venerable Lanie down.

Developing any Ultimate Module was a big pain because Ves needed to take the individual circumstances of each living mech into account and develop a personalized solution.

In the case of the Elegant Rage, Ves first thought about turning her thorns into an Ultimate Module, but then he figured out that this was a redundant action.

The living mech already maintained such a strong connection to her dynamic thorns that creating a subordinate spirit to manage them was unlikely to produce any benefits.

"Ultimate modules are better used to add new capabilities rather than enhancing existing core features." Ves concluded.

In order to figure out what he should add to the Elegant Rage, he first needed to gain an understanding of her current strengths and weaknesses.

The mechers could easily change her configuration when they got their hands on the second-class mutated machine. There was little point in focusing on stuff that could easily be changed such as the lack of ranged armaments or the absence of strong defenses.

Ves paid much more attention to the fundamentals of the Elegant Rage.

Venerable Lanie broke through as an expert pilot that focused on counterattacks.

Any enemy that got close and attempted to destroy the Elegant Rage would inevitably get stung by her thorns!

What made the thorns impossible to ignore up close was that they grew deadlier whenever the living mech got struck!

However, as useful as these thorns may be, they possessed a glaring weakness that every versatile opponent could exploit.

"Elegant Rage."

"YES, PROGENITOR?"

"Those thorns of yours… I know they can harm any enemies that come into contact with them, but… can you use them to retaliate against enemies that maintain their distance?"

"I… DO NOT BELIEVE SO." The living mech answered at that time.

"So any rifleman mech, alien phasefighter or alien warship can hover a few kilometers away and continually take potshots at your mech frame without needing to fear the threat posed by your thorns?"

"THAT IS SO. I CAN STILL BE EQUIPPED WITH RANGED WEAPONS, SO IT IS NOT AS IF I AM DEFENSELESS AGAINST ENEMIES THAT ARE OUT OF MY REACH."

"Whatever ranged armaments the RA mech designers intend to install on your mech frame will likely be unable to leverage the strength of your thorns." Ves argued. "That is a huge missed opportunity in my own opinion."

"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THE MECHERS?"

"There are many areas in which they can do better than me, but when it comes to this kind of stuff, don't count me out too soon. Let me think about a possible solution."

As an offensive mech, the Elegant Rage needed to be able to tackle a wide variety of enemies.

The Elegant Rage was originally based off the Lucid Rage model, which was dedicated to melee combat.

Venerable Lanie had developed a bias for melee combat, but she still performed well in ranged combat as well.

Ves believed that she would appreciate it if the Elegant Rage received a powerful ranged weapon that synergized well with her mutated talent as well as her mutated mech.

When Ves was thinking about all of the capabilities that the Emperor Tree had demonstrated during combat, he began to pay closer attention to its seed cannons.

The weapon system was very crude and simplistic. It relied on driving a wooden piston really hard on the back of a seed, thereby forcing the projectile to rapidly launch from the barrel and strike at a distant target.

Amazingly, the Emperor Tree managed to turn this into a viable and somewhat accurate weapon system by making use of rifled barrels in order to force the aerodynamic seeds to spin.

This massively increased their stability, range and accuracy, which meant that the seed cannon had a realistic chance of hitting its intended target.

However, from the perspective of a modern mech designer like Ves, seed cannons were laughably primitive and crude!

"I guess it is a decent solution if all you have to work with is wood, but…"

Ves could think of a hundred different ways to develop a superior weapon system that still retained the advantages of using Emperor Weed.

He couldn't help himself. He tried to utilize all of her expertise in both kinetic weapons as well as biomech design to come up with a vastly improved version of a seed cannon.

His intention was twofold. He wanted to add a powerful and unique seed cannon to the Elegant Rage's arsenal. In order to prevent the mechers from superseding this organic weapon with one of their own high-tech solutions, Ves made sure to keep it relevant by scaling its effectiveness to the strength of Venerable Lanie and the growth of her Woodsap mech.

"This improved seed cannon will not only become an Ultimate Module, but also a blessed weapon!"

The two were separate design applications, but there was nothing stopping Ves from combining them in a single device.

The development process of his interpretation of a seed cannon was not all that difficult.

The greatest concern on his mind was ammunition. The Emperor Tree could easily make use of very large calibers because it had a lot of space to store its seed ammunition. The calamity plant could also produce more of them with ease.

Ves did not think the Elegant Rage could solve its ammunition concerns so easily, especially when Venerable Lanie was still an expert pilot.

"There is no need to make use of oversized projectiles when smaller ones can do the job."

Ves overhauled the very primitive seed cannon design by turning it into a hybrid wooden version of a gauss rifle.

There were a few parts that had to be made out of pure metal, but Ves could actually get away with using improved ebony wood for many other components.

At least outwardly, the improved seed weapon still appeared to be made out of wood.

By relying on electromagnetic force to propel the metal-rich seeds, the muzzle velocity and damage inflicted by the new weapon became a lot better.

Ves could afford to shrink the caliber and switch to much smaller seeds made out of improved ebony wood.

In fact, Ves even added a mechanism to the weapon that could theoretically enable it to grow more seed projectiles in the field!

The weapon only needed to have access to enough raw materials as well as lots of wood energy in order to replenish its ammunition reserves.

"The Elegant Rage won't need to resupply at all if all goes well." Ves fantasized.

Combining a primitive seed cannon with gauss weapon technology was not the most important change he made.

Ves actually had a much more ambitious plan in mind, but it relied on numerous different factors in order to produce a completely new and possibly unprecedented result!

Converting the improved seed rifle into an Ultimate Module was not too difficult for Ves. He already had a solid direction in mind on what special capability it should gain. The tricky part was to tie it into the Elegant Rage's thorns, but he was able to do it after performing a bit of E-technology engineering.

The most crucial change he had to make was to turn it into a blessed weapon. The new weapon simply wouldn't be able to reach its full potential unless it was tied to one very specific design spirit.

"Gaia, would you like to bless this organic weapon with your power?" Ves beseeched the True God. "Let this seed rifle channel the wrath of nature. I am sure that Venerable Lanie will be glad to cooperate with you to defeat the enemies that you have in common."

Although Gaia did not respond at first, she eventually acquiesced and gave her blessing to the remarkable weapon. She did so after Ves described how its amazing performance would earn her greater recognition.

In any case, now that Ves had reached the day where he intended to complete this upgrade project, the Elegant Rage looked a lot deadlier and more rounded now that she had gained a seed rifle.

The eye-catching weapon was largely made out of the same improved ebony wood that characterized the rest of the organic parts of the mech frame.

When a small group of mech designers had gathered in the private mech workshop to witness the completion of the first Woodsap mech, Alexa Streon couldn't hold her curiosity towards this new addition.

"This weapon is filled with the power of life." She said. "It is also filled with the power of thorns. How come it feels much more threatening than a seed cannon despite its reduction in size?"

Ves smirked at his student. "Aside from turning it into a gauss weapon that can fire small seeds at much faster speeds, its projectiles can also do something special when they are infused with the right energies. Tell me, Alexa. Why do seeds exist?"

"Seeds exist… so that they can sprout into plants. Wait… are you suggesting that the seeds launched by this organic weapon can actually…?!"

"Hahaha! Your guess is right! Under the right circumstances, the Elegant Rage should be able to launch a seed at a distant opponent that will subsequently spout into a modest growth consisting of ebony wood! As long as its reserve of wood energy hasn't run out, it should be able to grow into an entangling vine that is difficult to get rid off! What is even better is that if my design works out, the ebony wood vine should also be able to draw upon the Elegant Rage's counterattack energy to grow unnaturally sharp and deadly thorns!"

This was the primary gimmick of what Ves had taken to calling the Sprout Rifle!

It was a weapon that was fully aligned with the wood element. It was also a weapon that perfectly synergized with Lanie's acquired talent.

Though Ves was unable to test the viability of the experimental Sprout Rifle, he believed that it would definitely surpass Venerable Lanie's expectations once she finally gained the opportunity to test it out for the first time!