The Mech Touch Chapter 3397: Complete Life

What was a living ch?

Many people in the Larkinson Clan had different answers to this question.

The ch pilots who piloted the Bright Warrior and many other ch models designed by Ves possessed the most intimate contact with living chs. By interfacing with them day after day, most often with the sa ch, they began to learn that living chs were different from the other machines they piloted in their careers.

Whether it was the training chs they piloted back when they attended a ch academy or the budget chs that every rookie started to pilot when they joined an organization at the bottom of the hiercharchy, chs were mostly machines to them. No matter how well they were designed or how much money it took to build them, each and every ch functioned like a tool. They did what they were supposed to and did not influence the decision of their pilots.

For four centuries, this had been the central paradigm of chs. A machine is a machine and must always be harnessed by their human owners and controllers. Any ch that did not fit this definition was a potential threat as it could always go out of control at any ti.

Although modern chs were so complicated and packed with different functions that it needed to be supported by an army of algorithms and sub-AIs to control all of its systems, the ch industry always made sure to adhere to a hard limit to the autonomy of any given ch.

As long as the ch pilot stopped making the decisions that only humans should be making, a ch was no longer a ch in the eyes of the ch industry. It was a battle bot that was driven by cold hard logical programming instead of warm-blooded humans!

The MTA had always taken a repulsive stance towards excessive automation. Not only did it go against the Association's goal that technology must strengthen humans that used it, automation also posed a grave security threat.

It was much easier to subvert the control of AI-driven battle bots than induce ch pilots to betray their leaders!

While the CFA held a more accepting stance towards automation, chs were different from starships. The difference in scale and complexity allowed chs to beco war weapons that were closely tied to humanity's own evolution and advancent.

Under this regi, a ch designer like Ves had to bend to the rules and play the sa ga as everyone else. He had always studiously abided by the fundantal principle that humans should always master their own technology instead of the other way around.

Admittedly, Ves had been pushing the limits imposed by the MTA. Starting from the X-Factor, he slowly explored and deciphered the phenona that made certain chs more impressive than others despite sharing the sa design.

He slowly ca up with the concept of a living ch and had continually refined his thods until he could design and make one in his sleep!

Not only that, but Ves took the idea of leveraging living entities to empower chs a step further. After receiving the direction of his mother, he began to look outside the ch for additional sources of power and soon developed a side branch where he employed design spirits to provide more support to the ech pilots that entrusted their lives to his products.

Nowadays, these features had beco the core selling points of his chs. Whether it was his comrcial ch models or his unique expert chs, all of them were defined by the living elents that Ves imparted in their design.

Starting from the beginning, each and every ch he designed in succession beca a little more stronger and sophisticated in these aspects. The spiritual foundations of his ch designs beca stronger and more structural. He continually added new design spirits to his collection while his existing ones grew stronger on their own accord.

Yet no matter how much Ves improved in these areas, he had never broken the rule that a ch should gain so much autonomy that it was able to wrench complete control from its ch pilot.

The Devil Tiger ca closest to reaching this point, and so might even argue that it had already crossed the line. However, Ves made sure that it could not fully function without a ch pilot.

Although Ves entertained notions about breaking this taboo, he had no intentions of acting on these thought experints. There was no compelling reason for him to go this far because he actually agreed with the MTA for once.

"Humanity should never let technology dominate their lives."

Of course, as a ch designer, he held a professional interest in preventing the rise of battle bots. There would be no market for chs anymore if consurs began to dispense with the trouble of training ch pilots and preferred to make use of more convenient war weapons.

However, Ves was not completely ignorant of the greater trend of humanity's evolution. Starting from the adoption of ever-greater warships, human civilization had indeed been following a dangerous road.

He simply could not agree with the CFA's vision of the future and would much rather help the MTA win the ideological struggle that might very well determine the course of humanity's future

This was why he felt rather mixed at this ti.

With his bleeding palm pressed against Joshua's own injured hand, the drops of life that soaked the cockpit floor had acted as a catalyst that prompted the just-completed Chira Project to undergo a profound transformation!

Although the chanical elents of the expert hero ch remained the sa as before, Ves could see that its spiritual foundation had reached a higher level!

It was not entirely unfamiliar to Ves. He had already encountered sothing similar in both the Quint and the Shield of Samar.

These two living chs stood out from the rest by possessing greater and more conscious forms of life. Though they had their differences, their most exceptional aspect was that they were fully alive like any human being and could think like any other fully sentient being!

In fact, Ves also suspected that the Ouroboros that he had designed during one of his previous Mastery experiences also reached this height.

This was different from most of the living chs he designed today. Though he called chs such as the Ferocious Piranha and the Valkyrie Redeer alive, in truth they were only half-conscious.

They weren't really active when the chs were dormant and only ca alive when the machines were activated. The living chs only possessed faint control of themselves and still had to work together with the ch pilots to achieve the greatest influence.

This wasn't necessarily a bad thing to Ves. He deliberately designed his chs to build up a symbiotic relationship with their ch pilots in order to generate positive synergy. chs existed to complent ch pilots, nothing more.

The Quint and the Shield of Samar had broken this original design intention. By borrowing the exceptional power of the breakthroughs of their respective pilots, they absorbed enough energies to beco a higher order life that possessed greater potential but also greater danger!

Though there was a chance that either the Quint or the Shield of Samar might betray their owners one day, Ves didn't take it too seriously. The two exceptional living chs were firmly in his grasp and they had already grown alongside the Larkinsons for so long that it was inconceivable that they would turn their coats!

Ves also knew that it was beyond his ans to make more higher order living chs like these. The circumstances that allowed them to evolve to a higher state were not replicable. If he wanted to increase the amount of chs like these in his arsenal, then he could do nothing but wait until his expert candidates broke through while piloting an ordinary living ch.

Suffice to say, this was a slow, unreliable and uncontrollable production process. He predicted that he would have to beco a Senior or Master before he was qualified to pursue this matter further.

It therefore ca as a complete surprise to Ves that Joshua of all people found a way to make a breakthrough in this aspect!

At the very start of a ch's existence, Joshua's improvised blood ritual sohow triggered a transformation that caused the Chira Project to turn into a higher order living ch!

Ves thought that this wasn't possible at his current level of strength. He assud that the Chira Project would have to leech off the energies released by another breakthrough in order to beco an existence at the sa level of the Quint and the Shield of Samar.

He was wrong.

All it took was a smaller trigger to transform the spiritual foundation of a ch from a half-life into a full life.

As the Chira Project settled into its new mode of existence, Ves sensed how much it had grown from its previous state.

The sa building blocks were still there. The ch had not grown stronger because it gained more building blocks, but because it rearranged the existing ones in a much more clever way.

It was just like gathering all of the materials that ford a human body. If Ves just piled up the different substances into a single box, nothing useful would co out of it due to the complete lack of structure.

By binding certain organic materials together into a single-celled organism, he could make an initial form of life, although it was so weak that it couldn't even think for itself.

By combining a greater amount of materials to form a larger form of life like a mouse or a rabbit, the living elent beca smarter, more capable and more aware.

By using up all of the materials at hand to create a new human entity, only then would Ves have the option to create a completely new sentient form of life!

The Chira Project now belonged to the last category, having jumped to it by transforming its entire spiritual foundation so that everything was being utilized and nothing was being wasted!

It was a much better utilization of spiritual resources than what Ves was able to accomplish before!

Right now, his head was filled with questions and uncertainties. What were the principles behind this mysterious transformation. How was Joshua of all people able to co up with this innovation? Would Ves be able to decipher the chanisms behind this profound change and apply it to any of his subsequent chs?

By now, Joshua had withdrawn his bleeding hand. He calmly retrieved a small first aid gadget from his toolbelt and covered his wound with a special foam that sterilized and closed the wound.

The expert pilot silently reached out and perford the sa procedure on Ves' palm.

Ves woke up from his thoughts after he received this treatnt. He looked incredibly confused at Joshua.

"How?"

The expert pilot responded with a knowing smile. "I had a hunch."

The explanations could wait for later. Right now, the state of the Chira Project was of greater importance. Ves had to secure at least one success before he could chase after other goals.

He shakily withdrew a pouch from his hidden pocket. He opened it up and dropped five lustrous gems onto his healthy palm.

He stretched his hand to his brother in arms.

"What… do you want to do?" Venerable Joshua questioned.

This ti, it was his turn to look confused!

"Choose one of these gems. Which one attracts you the most?"

Joshua wasn't sure why this was important, but he did not want to keep Ves waiting. He fell silent for a dozen seconds. He didn't feel anything special about any of the gems, so he decided to pick the one with the most attractive color in his eyes.

"This one." He pointed to the aquamarine gem. "It's the most colorful one."

"Great choice."

Ves carefully put the remaining gems in his pouch before approaching the front of the cockpit.

He quickly withdrew a multitool from his toolbelt and pried the jewel that functioned as the main startup button from its socket. He then proceeded to put the aquamarine gem which happened to share the sa shape in its place.

"Let's go outside and watch." Ves said as he already floated out of the cockpit.

The mysterious transformation that the Chira Project had just undergone had sohow increased the quality of the ch.

Although it hadn't turned into a masterwork straight away, it had co close to the masterwork threshold.

It just needed a gentle push to get over the edge, and Ves just provided one!