The Mech Touch

As the storm clouds continued to rage above the skies of New Constantinople VIII, many people began to pay attention to the Larkinson Clan yet again.

Most leaders of red humanity were currently preoccupied with the final war preparations in order to meet the imminent alien offensive, but there were still enough people who had the time to take a look at the Larkinson Clan.

Although the general population still remained ignorant about lightning tribulations, many high-placed figures had gradually learned about their significance.

"What is Professor Larkinson doing this time?"

"What fantastic mech did he make that would merit such a response?"

"I cannot see what is special about this cybernetic mech outside of those illogical thorns."

The scale of the lightning tribulation may be limited this time, but any creation that provoked such a response was worthy of notice!

The Red Association had moved quickly to block curious onlookers from witnessing the Elegant Rage in action, but the fact that the entire event took place on open terrain made it impossible to block every means of remote observation.

People were beginning to take notice of the first Woodsap mech, even if hardly anyone comprehended the true secrets of this mysterious machine.

Inside Diandi Base, the mech designers who witnessed the finalization of the Elegant Rage all grew impressed at the performance of the overhauled mech up to this point.

"The ebony wood improved with the help of our researchers is truly performing as well as expected." Professor Vector Loban stated as he continued to pay attention to the telemetry transmitted by the Woodsap mech. "The regeneration factor of this material is higher when employed by the Elegant Rage as opposed to other biomechs. It is clear that there is a strong synergy between living mechs and hyper wood."

Professor Jovy Armalon paid closer attention to the pilot. "Major Simon Jankowski is making good progress in mastering the nuances of the Elegant Rage. This is one of the reasons why he was assigned to lead the mech contingent of the Bluejay Fleet. He is experienced enough to have polished all of his piloting skills, but he is also young enough to remain flexible and open-minded. The living mech must be putting active effort into accommodating his piloting quirks as well."

No pilot was able to hop into the cockpit of a random mech and master it to an extremely high level during a single deployment.

Even an excellent first-class expert candidate such as Simon Jankowski who possessed excellent fundamental skills could not outperform the likes of Lanie Larkinson before she broke through.

It would be nice if Jankowski had spent a few more months with the Elegant Rage, but his current degree of utilization was not bad given how little time he spent in the cockpit.

Alas, there was another reason why the mech designers would have preferred to witness the performance of another mech pilot.

"It is a shame that Venerable Lanie is not present to draw out the true power of the Elegant Rage." Gloriana spoke with a pained expression. "I haven't been able to work on the Elegant Rage myself, but Ves has learned about mech personalization from me to apply a good selection of my best practices in this project. The Woodsap mech is best suited for mech pilots that prefer skirmishing over brawling and is able to demonstrate a high degree of ambidexterity in order to wield the two tonfas in both a defensive and offensive capacity. Major Jankowski's combat approach is different, and it shows."

Venerable Lanie Larkinson gained an excellent grasp on basic swordsmanship due to special reasons. She subsequently spent years as a mech pilot and expert candidate on tempering all of her skills, but notably her melee combat capabilities.

Similar to Venerable Imon Ingvar, Lanie had taken a penchant for dual wielding swords or other armaments. She not only gained a good sense of rhythm in combat, but also became proficient in wielding two equally sized weapons as if both were being held by her dominant hand.

Ves subsequently optimized the Elegant Rage for this combat approach, making sure that both arms were able to exert the same amount of strength, with only minor differences in their settings to take Lanie's subconscious biases into account.

Major Jankowski on the other hand did not focus too much on melee combat. He was fine when wielding fairly short and light one-handed weapons, and he knew his way around long and heavy polearms.

However, the medium-length solid ebony wooden tonfas fell outside these categories. Although Jankowski at least attended a few classes in the past where he was able to learn the basics of wielding this exotic type, the man was clearly not in tune with Lanie's preferred weapon type in the past few years!

Not only that, but Jankowski never put any emphasis on ambidexterity. He wielded the Elegant Rage's tonfas with a distinct split between a dominant hand and an off hand.

It was not a bad approach.

By relying on the dominant hand to hold the tonfa like a club, the Elegant Rage was able to strike the current lightning manifestation with additional reach and leverage.

By relying on the off hand to hold the tonfa by the convenient grip, the Woodsap mech gained a convenient and slender barrier that could effectively block a lot of sword strikes.

However, the poor mastery demonstrated by Major Jankowski was not enough. He was unable to replicate Venerable Lanie's more dynamic and unpredictable approach of alternating between grips with either tonfas.

It became a lot harder to predict her attacks when either hand was able to switch from a defensive to an offensive grip and vice versa.

Although Simon Jankowski knew that he could be doing a lot more with the pair of tonfas, he did not dare to attempt anything new for fear of losing control and presenting an opening to his current opponent.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The four-armed swordsman simulated by the lightning tribulation was relentless. The alien warrior swung his weapons with greater speed and more versatile angles than the Elegant Rage, causing the latter to get suppressed ever since both opponents closed in on each other.

Jankowski barely found opportunities to launch his own attacks. The two swords that were constantly bearing down on the Elegant Rage not only struck with considerable force, but also produced elemental effects that generated additional pressure.

Whenever the alien swordsman's fire sword struck a tonfa, it produced a blast of flames that scorched and burned the ebony wood.

Whenever the opponent's ice sword struck a tonfa, it produced a blast of frost that impaired the ebony wood's regenerative properties.

The alien adversary became a lot harder to fend off when he occasionally swapped his swords around!

The fire sword struck a tonfa that had already become marred by frost.

The ice sword struck a tonfa that had become hotter and marked by burns.

The abrupt switch from hot to cold or the other way around was not doing the abused tonfas any favors!

The tonfas weren't designed to withstand this kind of abuse. The improved ebony wood material that served as the main material of the pair of weapons may possess the ability to recover from damage, but it needed time it did not have at the moment!

Ves grew more and more concerned as the duel progressed. The biggest positive to this bout was that Major Jankowski still managed to maintain his guard. The enemy swordsman had not been able to land more than a couple of glancing blows onto the Elegant Rage's mech frame.

He was also learning quickly. The pressure of combat forced him to become rapidly more familiar with the tonfas. He was constantly optimizing and speeding up all of his moves.

This was the strength of a heavily augmented first-class mech pilot. Soldiers such as Simon Jankowski might not possess too much depth in any single area, but they accrued such a broad array of skills that they had become good at quickly gaining proficiency in any weapon system.

However, this still did not give the Elegant Rage an edge in the ongoing duel.

The enemy was learning as well. The lightning tribulation did too good of a job at simulating the skills as well as the combat acumen of this alien swordsman.

The adversary that was large, skilled and strong enough to be able to fight head-on against a mech like the Elegant Rage always maintained the upper hand throughout the exchanges.

Even if the alien swordsman briefly backed off, he only came back even harder just a short moment later!

Ves continued to study the opponent's swordsmanship with a critical eye. He had spent enough time with Ketis and the Swordmaidens to gain certain insights on the alien's approach to sword combat.

The traditional swordsmanship of the Heavensword Association was largely centered around the self. The swordmaster relied on extraordinary willpower to forcefully reshape the reality around him! Their strong minds and stronger wills also made them extremely resistant to changes imposed by others.

Ves did not get the sense that the alien swordsman was trying to impose his own will onto reality.

Instead, the four-armed warrior seemed to mold himself to certain aspects of the environment. He actively harmonized with the power of fire and ice in the environment, allowing him to amplify all of his attacks by channeling ambient E energies.

This was similar to how the Emperor Tree leveraged the abundant amount of wood energy that it had managed to capture from the environment!

The difference between the two was that the alien swordsman did not rely on brute force alone in order to leverage the power of heaven.

It was not too obvious at first, but as the duel progressed, the alien swordsman was gaining more and more momentum.

All of his sword techniques seemed to resonate with either fire or ice energy!

It was like a snowball. The more the alien swordsman wielded the power of these elements, the more he was able to call upon them in his next attacks!

The tonfas held by the Elegant Rage were beginning to look more and more ravaged as a result. Despite Major Jankowski's adaptations, the pair of ebony wood weapons could not endure the onslaught for long!

Even a total layman was able to see that the lightning manifestation was gaining more and more advantages as the fight continued.

Two different energy vortices appeared around the swords. Despite their proximity, the fire and ice vortices did not actually come close enough to produce any violent reactions.

Instead, the alien swordsman masterfully kept them apart and wielded the power of the two elements without producing any accidents!

There were even signs that the alien swordsman was able to deliberately take advantage of the inherent conflict between the two elements to add additional force to certain blows!

As much as Major Jankowksi tried to figure out his adversary's weaknesses, he had no ability to exploit them so long as his Elegant Rage remained suppressed.

"I cannot go on like this, professor." He spoke through gritted teeth. "I need a way to break this game. Do you have any solutions?"

That was what Ves had been wondering for several minutes now. The second-to-last challenge of this ostensibly short lightning tribulation was already proving to be a very serious threat to his work.

The easiest way to break the game was to borrow a copious amount of power from Gaia, but Ves was extremely wary of exceeding the tolerance of the lightning tribulation. Its earlier reaction already showed that it was on the edge.

No. Major Jankowski and the Elegant Rage needed to look to themselves in order to improve their performance.

There was one obvious way to increase their combat effectiveness. It was also one that Ves had been trying to ignore since the start of this ordeal.

What if Ves broke his promise to Venerable Lanie?

What if he allowed Major Jankowksi to form a Woodsap Pact with the Elegant Rage?

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