The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6144

To be honest, Ves felt as if the Elegant Rage had resorted to cheating by borrowing the power of Gaia.

Major Jankowski barely had to do anything as the thorn vines spawned from the Gaia-empowered seed practically slaughtered the gas cloud by themselves!

While Ves acknowledged that the Elegant Rage was able to sit back and relax because he had done a good job at designing the Sprout Rifle, it did not change the fact that the mech was relying on the power of an external source.

It presented an interesting question to Ves. Could Gaia or any design spirit be considered as a part of the strength of a living mech?

Was their ability to call in long-distance support a violation of the rules, or just a part of the game?

Ves wasn't able to make up his mind.

His sense of honor told him that borrowing the power of a True God was not right, even if the tribulation storm let him get away with it this time.

His sense of pragmatism was a lot more accepting towards this approach. So what if the Sprout Rifle was able to borrow Gaia's power? This was the entire purpose of a blessed weapon!

Perhaps it was much like the priest characters in those popular virtual reality games based on fantasy settings. Unlike most character classes, the ones related to priests explicitly prayed to their gods to cast healing spells and resurrect dead bodies. The devoted characters were able to perform a lot of actions that were far beyond the realm of mortals, yet they were still allowed to do so within the rules of the game.

Perhaps the concept of blessed weapons was not all that different. Gaia had to pay a price in order to bestow the Sprout Rifle with her power.

This was also why Ves had formed a tentative deal with Gaia. He promised that she would be the design spirit of every Woodsap mech he would make in the future.

This was a beneficial arrangement so long as both sides maintained friendly relations. Ves would become assured that his Woodsap mechs gained a supportive supervisor and source of additional wood energy.

In turn, Gaia would gain a lot of high-quality spiritual feedback from pilots that would presumably enjoy greater success by forming Woodsap Pacts. Each of these pilots and their Woodsap mechs would probably have amazing compatibility with the Mother of Earth, so Ves had no reason to resist this change.

The only concern that Ves had with this arrangement was whether he was shifting too much power into Gaia's hands.

The True God not only possessed a lot of relations with plantlife, but also shared an unmistakable connection to Old Earth.

This meant that it was conceivable that Gaia would also be able to claim dominion over elemental Carmine mechs based on the earth element!

It was not acceptable for a design spirit to become the default design spirit for both wood and earth-aspected Carmine mechs.

To be honest, Ves originally intended to create another design spirit with a powerful wood or earth domain.

If he had been able to harvest the remnant spirituality of the Emperor Tree, then Ves would have the perfect ingredient to create a tree-based design spirit that inherited many traits of the calamity plant!

Alas, this was not possible unless Ves became willing to dismantle the Ebony Everchanger, which was not an option.

He would have to figure out a different solution. He could still spend money to acquire powerful mutated beasts based on either wood or earth elements.

"The thorny vine exhausted the gas cloud a minute ago. The next one is about to come." Jankowski said, pulling Ves from his thoughts. "This is the eight challenge."

That meant that as long as the Elegant Rage managed to pass 2 more tests, she would successfully earn the right to exist as the first Woodsap mech in existence!

Although it looked as if the Elegant Rage had almost made it to her destination, both Ves and Major Jankowski did not dare to become complacent.

After continuous strengthening, the lightning manifestation that emerged this time was bound to be even harder to defeat than the strange gas cloud!

"A considerably larger form dropped from the storm clouds. The lightning formed a vaguely familiar alien presented before the Elegant Rage."

"This one looks relatively familiar." Ves noted. "Messier 87 probably hosts a powerful species of sword wielders. This one holds two different blades. The alien can also do more. Can you sense the flow of E energy? One of the blades is attracting fire energy while the other is attracting ice energy!"

When combined with tribulation lighting, the twin blades of this sword-wielding alien started to look really scary!

This was the style of swordsmanship of Messier 87! In an energy-rich environment, every extraordinary swordsman apparently learned to amplify all of their sword techniques by borrowing the power of heaven.

Although this approach towards swordsmanship lacked the strong willpower and indomitability of human swordmasters, the alien style was nonetheless immensely powerful as long as there was a strong supply of energy.

It just so happened that the sword wielding alien could count on the storm clouds to gain a constant infusion of tribulation lightning. The four-armed alien with digitigrade legs was already taking advantage of this by increasing the lethality of its swords!

Major Jankowski frowned. "I am not sure whether the tonfas of the Elegant Rage can withstand the blows of those swords. That fire sword looks especially threatening against the wood of my mech."

Ves could feel the potent power of the sword-wielding alien as well. The tonfas may be able to give the Elegant Rage a chance to survive up close, but if the discrepancies in skills as well as hard performance became too great, then that would not bode well for the living mech!

"We need to leverage all of the advantages of the Elegant Rage that we can muster. Pick up the vine from below. I think we may need to borrow the power of Gaia yet again."

Major Jankowsky did not question the command. The mech flew towards the site where the vines had lingered after they killed the gas cloud. Much of the thorns still looked eager to inflict pain while sucking the life out of their victims.

Major Jankowski suppressed his apprehension towards the dangerous-looking growths and commanded the Elegant Rage to pick up one of the vines.

As soon as the mech did so, the vines suddenly collapsed and condensed until they turned into a single long green whip!

A whip that was covered in much denser and more deadly thorns!

"I am not proficient in the use of whips." Major Jankowski spoke.

"It shouldn't matter too much. Just throw it at the enemy. The vine is alive, so it should be able to entangle the enemy by itself."

If Ves had more time, he would have explored whether there was a way to change the shape of the vine into a physical shield, an additional armor layer or even a spear.

Alas, the tribulation would not give the Elegant Rage the time to figure out her new capabilities.

After the alien swordsman started to wield the power of fire and ice, it immediately started to charge straight at the Elegant Rage!

Major Jankowski only bothered to launch a few ebony seed shots at the incoming enemy, only for the alien swordsman to block the simple attacks with its flaming blade.

In the face of this aggressive approach, the Elegant Rage did not immediately throw out its vine whip.

Instead, the mech wrapped it up around her mech frame like a bandolier and intended to meet the charging alien adversary with a pair of tonfas!

"Wait, are you sure it's a good idea to—"

Bang!

Bang!

The Elegant Rage bounced backwards as the power unleashed by the two swords upon getting blocked by the tonfas proved to be too much!

It took a lot of effort to arrest the momentum transferred by the alien swordsman. When Major Jankowski observed the state of the ebony wooden tonfas, he could already observe the damage.

Not only were the two weapons chipped, they also showed obvious burn and ice damage each!

The tonfas were already beginning to recover, but when a wind of ice and frost blew into the Elegant Rage's direction, the regeneration speed immediately dropped!

"It can do that?!"

"Move! Don't let your mech and her components get frozen in place! This is an area denial attack! So long as you keep moving to places that are not affected by the ice, the Elegant Rage won't get inhibited."

The power of ice and frost was slow to act on the Elegant Rage. Since there were no restrictions to her movement, she simply boosted the warmer areas and forced the sword-wielding alien to waste a lot of energy for nothing.

This did not deter the powerful foe. Seeing that the Elegant Rage was trying to avoid confrontation in order to give her tonfas time to restore themselves, the alien swordsman began to slash its ice blade in the air!

"Watch out! Those as sword energy attacks!"

Each slash unleashed a powerful ice spike that soared towards the Elegant Rage at a fairly fast pace!

The mech was able to dodge the first spike without expending too much effort, but then the next ones arrived.

The Elegant Rage began to display her newfound grace once more as she began to dance and weave around all of the ice spikes.

It seemed as if the swordsman was unable to make any progress, but then it began to swing its fire blade as well.

Arrows made out of fire energy shot towards the Elegant Rage!

Major Jankowski put greater effort into dodging them. He really did not want his partially wooden mech to catch fire!

It became a lot harder for the Elegant Rage to remain unscathed. The mobility of the second-class mech was not the best, and the expert candidate still wasn't able to pilot her as fluently as possible.

Eventually, the Elegant Rage could not prevent herself from getting struck by an ice spike.

The sharp spike pierced a leg plate and inflicted moderate damage to the internals!

What was even worse was that the ice spike began to freeze the foreleg section, causing every related part to slow down or malfunction.

"Shake it off!" Ves quickly urged.

The Elegant Rage already whacked the partially embedded ice spike away with one of her tonfas.

The removal of the ice spike ended the freeze effect, but still left a strong impression on Ves and Major Jankowski.

"The alien swordsman is coming closer!"

The enemy was not content with launching ice spikes and fire arrows at the Elegant Rage. The four-armed alien was actively trying to move closer so that it could strike at the mech directly.

There was little the Elegant Rage could do at the moment. Major Jankowski had to put a lot of focus on evading, deflecting or blocking all of the incoming projectiles.

As soon as the enemy swordsman came close enough, it began to summon a large amount of fire energy before making a wide slash with its fire sword, unleashing a wall of fire that the Elegant Rage was unable to evade!

Major Jankowski could do little but have his mech brace against the attack.

The heat levels in the cockpit rose as the wall of flame scorched the exterior of the Elegant Rage!

The metallic parts glowed red-hot while many of the wooden components had already started to burn!

"Gaia!"

The thorn whip released a burst of energy, causing the flames that had begun to spread across the Elegant Rage to lose their power and disappear!

"Fire is the nemesis of a Woodsap mech or any wooden mech for that matter. If we want to beat this swordsman, we can't let it channel the power of heaven without interruption." Ves spoke.

"So the Elegant Rage needs to get close?"

"Yes. You need to put your fighting skills to good use. If you can't outfight this alien, then the Elegant Rage will probably get burned."